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RIVAL SULTANAS 




f ../F0& l^-WWSZS 



Rival Sultanas: Nell 

Gwyn, Louise de K&roualle, 

and Hortense Mancini 

By H. Noel Williams :: Author of 

"Five Fair Sisters," "A Princess of Intrigue" 
" Unruly Daughters" &c. 



With 25 Illustrations, ineluding & 
Frontispiece in Photogravure 



NEW YORK 

DODD. MEAD AND COMPANY 

1915 



« 



*1 



tt. 6 «* 



Printed in Great Britain 

Bequost 

Albert Adsit Clemona 

Aug. 24, 1938 

(Not available for exchange^ 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 

I. — The Early Loves of Charles II. 
II. — The Beginnings of Nell Gwyn 
III. — Nell Gwyn and Lord Buckhurst 
IV. — " The King sends for Nelly " 
V. — The Merry Monarch . 
VI. — Nell leaves the Stage . 
VII. — The Treaty of Dover . 
VIII. — The Accession of Louise de Keroualle 
IX. — Intrigues, political and otherwise 
X. — Louise de Keroualle becomes Duchess of Portsmou 
XL — The Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwyn 
XII.— Madame de Mazarin enters the Lists 
XIII. — Triumph of Madame de Mazarin . 
XIV. — Charles, Louis and the Parliament 

XV— The Popish Plot 

XVI. — The Exclusion Bill .... 
XVII. — The Triumph of the Court . 
XVIII. — Le Roi s' amuse ..... 
XIX. — The Duchess of Portsmouth visits France 
XX. — The Episode of the Grand Prior . 
XXI. — Nell Gwyn's Letters .... 
XXIL— The Death of Charles II. 
XXIIL— The Last Days of Nell Gwyn 
XXIV. — Exeunt Portsmouth and Mazarin . 



page 

I 

29 

47 
61 
67 
87 
94 
in 
128 
143 
159 
177 
201 
217 

239 
258 
283 
296 
3°3 
313 
321 
33o 
34i 
349 



TO 
MY WIFE 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Nell Gwyn ....... Photogravure frontispiece 

From the painting by Sir Peter Lely in the National Portrait Gallery. 

to face page 

Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of 

Cleveland ........ . . 14 

From the painting by Sir Peter Lely at Hampton Court. 
Frances Stuart, Duchess of Richmond (" La Belle Stuart"). . 24 

From a photograph by W. J. Roberts, after a painting by Sir Peter Lely at Good- 
wood, reproduced by permission of the Earl of March. 

Nell Gwyn .42 

From an engraving by Wright, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 
Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst ..... 52 

From an engraving after S. Harding. 
Mary, called Moll, Davis -38 

From an engraving after S. Harding. 
Charles II. ........... 76 

From the picture by Mary Beale in the National Portrait Gallerv (photo by Emery 
Walker). 

Nell Gwyn 88 

From a mezzotint engraving by P. V. B., after the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 

Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth .... 102 

From the painting by Pierre Mignard in the National Portrait Gallery. 
Catherine of Braganza, Queen of England .... .132 

From an engraving by S. Freeman, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 

James, Duke of York, afterwards James II 146 

From the painting by Sir Peter Lely at St. James's Palace (photo by Emery Walker). 
Copyright of H. M. the King. 

Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby, afterwards first Duke of Leeds 166 

From an engraving by Freeman, after the painting by Van der Vaart. 
Nell Gwyn with her two Sons 172 

From an engraving by Tompson, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 
Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin 178 

From an engraving by Valete, after the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 
Honors Courtin, Seigneur de Chantreine 196 

From an engraving by Nanleuil. 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

to face page 
Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford, afterwards Duke of St. Albans 210 

From a painting in the collection of Lord de L'Isle and Dudley. 
Jean Jacques Barrillon 224 

From a contemporary print. 
Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury . . 248 

From an engraving by R. White. 
James Scott, Duke of Monmouth 264 

From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery (photo by Emery Walker). 

Nell Gwyn 298 

From a mezzotint engraving by J. Becket, after the painting by Simon Verhelst. 

Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth .... 306 
From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the collection of the Duke of Rich- 
mond, K.G. 

Philippe de Vendome, Grand Prior of France . . . . 314 

From a contemporary print. 
John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester ..... 324 

From a painting, probably by Wissing. 

Nell Gwyn 344 

From the painting by Sir Peter Lely at Althorp, photographed by kind permission 
of Earl Spencer. 
Charles Lennox, first Duke of Richmond ..... 352 
From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the collection of the Duke of Rich- 
mond, K.G. 



RIVAL SULTANAS 



CHAPTER I 

THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 

TT may be said that his inclinations to Love were 
the effects of health and a good constitution, with 
as little mixture of the seraphick part as ever man had. 
And though from that foundation men often raise their 
passions, I am apt to think that his stayed as much as 
any man's ever did in the lower region. This made him 
like easy mistresses. They were generally resigned to 
him while he was abroad, with an implied bargain. 
Heroick, refined lovers place a good deal of their pleasure 
in difficulty, both for the vanity of conquest, and as a 
better earnest of their kindness. 

" After he was restored, mistresses were recommended 
to him, which is no small matter in a Court, and not un- 
worthy of the thoughts even of a party. A mistress, 
either dexterous herself or well instructed by those that 
are so, may be very useful to her friends, not only in the 
immediate hours of her ministry, but by her influence 
and insinuations at all times. It was resolved generally 
by others whom he should have in his arms, as well as 



2 RIVAL SULTANAS 

whom he should have in his Councils. For a man who 
was capable of choosing, he chose as seldom as any man 
that ever lived. 

" He had more properly, at least in the beginning 
of his time, a good stomach to his mistresses than any 
great passion for them. His taking them from others was 
never learnt in a romance, and indeed fitter for a philo- 
sopher than a knight-errant. His patience for their 
frailties showed him no exact lover. It is a heresy, 
according to a true lover's creed, even to forgive an 
infidelity, or the appearance of it. Love of ease will 
not do it where the heart is much engaged ; but where 
mere nature is the motive, it is possible for a man to 
think righter than the common opinion, and to argue 
that a rival taketh away nothing but the heart, and 
leaveth all the rest. 

" He had wit enough to suspect and he had wit enough 
not to care. The ladies got a great deal more than 
would have been allowed an equal bargain in Chancery 
for what they did for it ; but neither the manner nor 
the measure of pleasure is to be judged by others." 

Thus wrote that shrewd observer of human character, 
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, of Charles II. and 
his mistresses, and those who have studied the career of 
the Merry Monarch will not find much with which to 
disagree. 

There was certainly little enough of the romantic 
lover about Charles II. If he never descended so low 
as Louis XV. and certain other licentious princes, he was 
quite incapable of cherishing a genuine passion, such as 
his famous grandfather, Henri of Navarre, entertained 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 3 

for Gabrielle d'Estrees. He did not even demand, 
like Louis XIV., that his mistresses should at any rate 
pretend to be in love with him. So long as they were at 
hand to amuse him in his idle hours, he appears to have 
cared little what they did at other times. It is doubtful 
if there is another king in history who would have 
tolerated the glaring infidelities of Barbara Villiers. Yet 
they seldom provoked in Charles more than a momentary 
irritation, and that was caused, not so much by jealousy 
or disgust as by the doubts which they occasioned 
whether the children to which the sultana gave birth 
were his or another's. 

Of Charles II. it might be observed, as was said of 
Philippe d'Orleans, Regent of France, that he had one 
of those precocious temperaments of which 

La valeur n'attend le nombre des ann^es, 

since if he did not quite succeed in equalling the achieve- 
ment of that prince, who was commonly reported to 
have become a father in his fifteenth year,* he ran it 
pretty close, and before he left Jersey (June, 1646), 
when he was barely sixteen, he had already acquired 
that distinction. 

Mr. Osmund Airy, in his monograph on Charles II., 
gives some interesting details concerning his Majesty's 
firstborn — a son — whose existence appears entirely to 
have escaped the notice of most historians : 

" The secret was well kept, so well, indeed, that for 
more than twenty years afterwards, at the time that 

* See the author's " Unruly Daughters " (London, Hutchinson ; New 
York, Scribner, 19 13). 

I* 



4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Charles was desirous of being received into the Catholic 
Church, he was able to inform the General of the 
Jesuits that it was known to but two other persons, the 
Queen of Sweden and Henrietta Maria. Of the mother 
we know absolutely nothing more than Charles dis- 
closes in the same letter. ' The boy was born/ he 
says, ' of a young lady who was amongst the most 
distinguished in our Kingdom, more from the frailty 
of our first youth than from any ill intentions or great 
depravity.' With her wrecked life, her motherhood 
which was her shame, she passes like a nameless shadow 
across the page. Of the child we hear more. In 1665 
he was in London, and on September 27 of that year 
Charles gave a written acknowledgment that James 
Stuart was his natural son, having lived in France and 
elsewhere under an assumed name up to that date. 
Charles further ordered that he should be known as 
James de la Cloche du Bourg de Jarsey, and prohibited 
him from disclosing his birth until after his own death, 
when he might present this declaration to Parliament. 
The boy then went to Holland to pursue his studies. 
A year and a half later (February, 1667), Charles sent 
him another paper — which, like the first, still exists in 
the archives of the Jesuits — assigning to him, if it pleased 
his successor and Parliament, £500 a year, so long as he 
lived in London and remained a member of the English 
Church. On April 29, 1667, the young man was recon- 
ciled to Rome, and this circumstance led to another 
meeting with his father. ... In August, 1668 — if 
the documents in the archives of the Jesuits can be 
regarded as genuine — he had sent to the General of the 
Order a request that the son of his Jersey boyhood might 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 5 

be sent to him, in order that he might practise with him 
in secret the mysteries of the Catholic religion, ' without 
giving a shade of suspicion that we are Catholic' But 
the hope that he might be received into the Catholic 
Church, while outwardly appearing a Protestant, was 
destroyed by the uncompromising statement of the 
Pope in the case of James that even the Head of 
the Church himself had no power to grant such a 
dispensation." 

Charles II. had undoubtedly an eye for beauty, but 
otherwise his mistresses did not do much credit to his 
good taste, and their haughtiness, infidelities, extrava- 
gance and jealousy of one another gave him at different 
times plenty of occupation. 

Lucy Walter, the companion of his wanderings and 
the mother of the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, publicly 
disgraced herself and everyone connected with her. 
The daughter of William Walter, of Roch Castle in Pem- 
brokeshire, a Royalist gentleman whose ancestral home 
was taken and burnt by the Parliamentary forces in 1644, 
after holding out bravely for the King, Lucy is said to 
have been born about 1630. After the destruction of 
Roch Castle, the members of the Walter family were 
separated, and at the end of the year 1647, or early in 
1648, Lucy, as James II. afterwards put it, " having 
little means and less grace, came to London to make 
her fortune." Here she is believed to have resided with 
her mother's sister, Margaret Prothero, who had married 
a Dutch merchant of St. Dunstan's in the West, named 
Gosfright. This aunt would scarcely seem to have 
kept a very strict watch on her niece, for, soon after the 
young lady's coming to Town, we find Algernon Sidney, 



6 RIVAL SULTANAS 

whose handsome head was to fall on the scaffold after 
the Rye House Plot, " trafficking " with her for her 
virtue. But, before this dishonourable arrangement 
could be concluded, Algernon's regiment received 
marching orders, and it was his brother, Colonel Robert 
Sidney, to whose persuasions Lucy eventually yielded. 

Him she accompanied to The Hague, where she was 
seen by Charles II., who straightway fell in love with 
her and lost no time in getting her away from Robert 
Sidney, who was, perhaps, not unwilling to part with 
the lady. 

On April 9, 1649, Lucy gave birth to a son (after- 
wards the Duke of Monmouth), whom Charles acknow- 
ledged as his. But the fact that his Majesty did not 
arrive at The Hague until the middle of September, 
1648, occasioned serious doubts as to whether this was 
the case ; and it is certain that, when he grew to man- 
hood, the Duke of Monmouth bore a much stronger 
resemblance to Robert Sidney than he did to his reputed 
father. 

We need not discuss here the claim put forward by 
Monmouth and his partisans that a marriage had been 
celebrated between Charles and Lucy Walter, which 
gained sufficient credence to make the King, in June, 
1678, consider it necessary to publish a declaration, 
which was entered in the Council-book and registered 
in Chancery, and stated " that, to avoid any dispute 
which might happen in time to come concerning the 
succession of the Crown, he did declare, in the presence 
of Almighty God, that he never gave, nor made any 
contract of marriage, nor was married to Mrs. Barber, 
alias Waters, the Duke of Monmouth's mother, nor to 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 7 

any other woman whatsoever, but to his present wife, 
Queen Catherine, then living." That the claim was a 
baseless one is beyond dispute, though it is quite possible, 
and even probable, that Charles had promised Lucy 
marriage. 

During July and August, 1649, Lucy was with Charles 
in Paris, and the respectable Evelyn, who travelled 
with her in Lord Wilmot's coach from Saint-Germain 
to the capital, describes her as " a brown, beautiful, bold, 
but insipid creature." Whether she also accompanied 
her royal lover to Jersey in the following September 
is not quite clear, but it is very probable that she did. 

When, in June, 1650, Charles set out for Scotland, he 
left his inamorata at The Hague, where her conduct in 
itself constituted a sufficient refutation of the supposed 
marriage. For no sooner was the prince safely out of 
the way, than she began to look about her for consola- 
tion and found it in the person of Colonel Henry 
Bennet (afterwards Earl of Arlington), whom in due 
course she presented with a daughter.* Not satisfied 
with the attentions paid by this gentleman, she was 
also generally believed to have had tender relations 
with Lord Taafe (afterwards second Earl of Carling- 
ford) and Colonel Thomas Howard, brother of James, 
Earl of Suffolk. 

On his return to the Continent in 165 1, Charles 
wisely terminated his connection with this woman — 
though he continued to keep her well supplied with 
money, notwithstanding the empty state of the privy 

* This daughter, Mary by name, married William Sarsfield, a brother of 
Patrick, Earl of Lucan, and, after his death in 1675, William Fanshawe, Master 
of the Requests to Charles. 



8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

purse — but he was to have much trouble before he was 
finally rid of her. Early in 1656 we find Daniel O'Neale, 
one of the Grooms of the Bedchamber, writing to his 
royal master from The Hague that he was " much 
troubled to see the prejudice hir [Lucy Walter] being 
here does your Majestie, for every idle action of hirs 
brings your Majestie uppon the stage." The particu- 
lar " idle action " which the writer had in mind was 
a murderous attack with a bodkin which the fair Lucy 
had made upon her maid, who had threatened to reveal 
certain highly compromising facts which had come 
to her ears, through the indiscretion of a midwife. 
To save a public scandal, O'Neale was obliged to have 
recourse to bribery. 

After this affair, efforts were made by the King's 
friends to persuade Lucy to return to England, and 
this she consented to do, in consideration of an annuity 
of £400 ; and was duly shipped off from Flushing, 
being accompanied by her two children, her maid, 
her brother, and her admirer Thomas Howard. 
Previous to her departure, she had an interview with 
Charles, either at Antwerp or Brussels, where he pre- 
sented her with a pearl necklace valued at .£1,500. 
In London, she took lodgings over a barber's shop, 
not far from Somerset House, where she passed as a 
Dutch widow ; but her identity was soon discovered 
by Cromwell's intelligence department, and towards 
the end of June, 1656, she and her maid Ann Hill were 
arrested as spies and clapped into the Tower. Here 
they were detained until July 16, when they were dis- 
charged ; and Cromwell issued an order to send away 
" Charles Stuart's lady of pleasure and the young 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 9 

heir and set them on shore in Flanders, which is no 
ordinary courtesie." 

August found Lucy and her suite back in Brussels, 
where fresh scandals followed their arrival, and it was 
found necessary to place the lady and the future Duke 
of Monmouth in a sort of captivity in the house of 
Charles's Ambassador. Finally, the unfortunate King, 
who had already made several ineffectual attempts to 
get possession of his son, whom he accused the mother 
of " making a property of to support herself in those 
wild and disgraceful courses she hath taken," was at 
last successful, and placed the boy in the care of Henrietta 
Maria. 

Deprived of the royal favour and separated from her 
son, to whom, to do her justice, she appears to have 
been tenderly attached, Lucy was compelled to leave 
Brussels, where the authorities, indeed, had only 
tolerated her presence out of consideration for Charles. 
She made her way to Paris, still beautiful, according 
to Erskine, and is said to have lived a very depraved 
life, from the consequences of which, if we are to believe 
Clarendon, she died in the autumn of 1658. 

There are several paintings of Lucy Walter. Among 
them may be mentioned the painting by Lely at Kneb- 
worth House ; the demi-nude portrait in the possession 
of the Marquis of Bute, which was engraved by Van der 
Berghe for Harding's " Gramont ; " and two miniatures 
at Montagu House. At Ditchley is a portrait of Lucy 
and the Duke of Monmouth as the Madonna and 
Child. 

Worthless as was Lucy Walter, the mistress whose 



io RIVAL SULTANAS 

reign began immediately on Charles's restoration to the 
throne, and continued for more than twelve years, was 
even worse. 

Barbara Villiers, afterwards Countess of Castlemaine 
and Duchess of Cleveland, was the only child of William 
Villiers, second Viscount Grandison, who fell fighting 
for the King at the siege of Bristol, and Mary, daughter 
of the first Viscount Bayning. William Villiers is de- 
scribed by Clarendon as a pattern of virtue, in which 
respect his daughter unfortunately was very far from 
taking after him ; indeed, if we are to believe the 
gossip that was in circulation about her in later years, 
her amorous propensities had been discerned when she 
was still a little girl. " This afternoon," writes Pepys, 
" walking with Sir W. Cholmley long in the gallery, 
he told me, among many other things, how Harry 
Killigrew* is banished from Court, for saying that 
my Lady Castlemaine was a little lecherous girl when 
she was young. . . . That she complained to the 
King, and he sent to the Duke of York, whose servant 
he is, to turn him away. The Duke of York has done 
it, but taken it ill of the Lady. She attended to excuse 
herself, but ill blood is made."| 

After the untimely death of her first husband, Lady 
Grandison married her kinsman, Charles Villiers, Earl 
of Anglesey, at whose house in London Barbara was 
brought up. With her wealth of dark auburn hair, her 
blue eyes, her perfect features, and her exquisite figure, 
she was one of the most lovely girls that one could wish 

* He was the son of Thomas Killigrew, and at this time Groom of the Bed- 
chamber to the Duke of York. 

J Pepys's Diary, October 21, 1666. 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II n 

to see ; and, such being the case, it is surprising that her 
mother and step-father, who must surely have been 
aware of her inclinations for the opposite sex, should 
have permitted her the liberty which she seems to have 
enjoyed. Any way, at the age of seventeen, she had 
fallen desperately in love with the young Earl of 
Chesterfield, grandfather of the letter-writer, a hand- 
some young spark, who appears to have been capable 
of carrying on as many love-affairs at the same time 
as was the celebrated Marechal de Richelieu in later 
years, and was only too ready to respond to her passion. 
The nature of the relations which existed between them 
may be inferred from the following letter addressed by 
Barbara to the earl : 

" It is ever my ill fortune to be disappointed of what 
I most desire, for this afternoon I did promise myself 
the satisfaction of your company ; but I feare I am 
disappointed, which is no small affliction to me ; but I 
hope the faits may yet be so kind as to let me see you 
about five o'clock ; if you will be at your private 
lodgings in Lincoln's Inn Fields, I will endeavour to 
come." 

In 1659 Barbara became the wife of Roger Palmer, 
son of Sir James Palmer, a Buckinghamshire gentleman, 
and heir to a considerable fortune. It was a marriage 
of convenience on both sides, and was far from putting 
an end to the Chesterfield affair, for shortly afterwards 
we find the lady writing to her noble admirer that she 
was " ready and willing to go all over the world with 
him." 

That Barbara entertained a genuine passion for Ches- 
terfield admits of no doubt. " My dear life," she writes 



12 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to him, when lying ill of small-pox, " I have been this 
day extremely ill, and the not hearing from you hath 
made me much worse than otherwayes I should have 
been. The doctor doth believe me in a desperate 
condition, and I must confess that the unwillingniss I 
have to leave you makes me not intertaine the thoughts 
of death so willingly as otherwise I should : for there 
is nothing beside yourselfe that could make me desire 
to live a day, and if I am never so happy as to see you 
more, yet the last words I will say shall be a praire for 
your happiness, and so I will live and dey loving you 
above all other things." 

Barbara's illness, which, fortunately for her, left no 
traces behind, and a duel in which Chesterfield killed 
his adversary and was obliged in consequence to remain 
in seclusion for a time, broke off the liaison, and later in 
the year the lady and her husband left England to join 
the Court of the exiled King in the Netherlands. It 
must have been now, and not as some writers have 
supposed after Charles's return to England, that his 
intimacy with Barbara began, since early in 1 660 we 
find Chesterfield, who was then at Bourbon-les-Bains, 
informing the latter that he had received " news con- 
cerning her ladyship which made him doubt of every- 
thing," and entreating her to send him her portrait, 
" for then he should love something that was like her, 
and yet unchangeable, and though it would have no 
great return of kindness, yet he was sure that it would 
love nobody else better than her very humble servant." 

The news to which Chesterfield refers was con- 
firmed soon after Charles's triumphal entry into London, 
and his Majesty's infatuation was patent to all the 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 13 

world. On Shrove Monday, February 25, 1 660-1, 
was born Barbara's first child, Anne, afterwards Coun- 
tess of Sussex, the paternity of whom was claimed by 
Roger Palmer, but was afterwards acknowledged by 
the King (by a royal warrant of 1673), though the 
child was generally assigned to Chesterfield, whom, 
according to Lord Dartmouth,* she very much resembled 
both in face and person. Despite this, there seems to 
be no grounds for suspecting the earl, from whose letters 
to Barbara it would appear that the lady had for a long 
time past refused to have anything to do with him, and 
that even his billets-doux remained unanswered. 

In the following December, Roger Palmer received 
the reward of his complaisance by being created Earl 
of Castlemaine and Baron Limerick in the peerage of 
Ireland, and Pepys, who saw the patent at the Privy 
Seal Office, remarks upon the limitation of the honours 
to the lady's heirs male, " the reason whereof every- 
body knows." 

On March 13, 1662, the new Queen, Catherine of 
Braganza, arrived from Portugal. In honour of her 
arrival the principal citizens lighted bonfires before 
their doors, but there was none before that of Barbara's 
lodging. However, Charles, presumably to reassure his 
mistress, spent the evening with her, and, says Pepys, 
" the King did send for a pair of scales and they did 
weigh one another ; " and it was soon evident that it 
would require charms infinitely more potent than 
those which poor Queen Catherine possessed to lure 
his Majesty from the side of his inamorata. 

That lady, on her side, was determined that the 

* Burnet, " History of My Own Times." 



i 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Queen should not be permitted to remain under any 
delusion as to where her husband's affections lay, and 
designed that her approaching confinement should 
take place at Hampton Court, where the royal couple 
were spending their honeymoon. It was only with 
great difficulty that the King succeeded in persuading 
her to renounce this intention. 

Barbara's second child — Charles, afterwards Duke 
of Southampton — was born early in June, 1662. 
Castlemaine, who had recently joined the Church of 
Rome, caused the boy to be baptized by a priest, 
which furnished his consort with a pretext for leaving 
him and conveying all her effects and " all the servants 
except the porter " to her uncle's house at Richmond. 
Shortly afterwards, the child was baptized again, this 
time according to the rites of the Church of England, 
by the rector of St. Mary's, Westminster, the King 
and Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, being the two 
godfathers. 

That same day, the Queen, who up to this time had 
firmly refused to receive her rival, and had erased her 
name from the list of ladies of her bedchamber which 
had been submitted to her, was surprised into 
receiving the countess at Hampton Court. A painful 
scene followed. " The Queen was no sooner sate in 
her chair," writes Clarendon, " but her colour changed, 
and tears gushed out of her eyes and her nose bled 
and she fainted, so that she was forthwith removed 
into another room, and all the company retired out of 
that where she was before." This, so far from causing 
his Majesty to feel ashamed of himself, merely served 
to make him the more determined to force his mistress 




BARBARA VILLIERS, COUNTESS OF CASTLEMAINE AXD DUCHESS 
OF CLEVELAND 

From a painting by Sir Peter Lely at Hampton Court. 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 15 

upon his unwilling consort, and Clarendon, to his 
intense disgust, was commissioned to persuade the 
Queen to submit to the indignity of receiving the 
favourite. For some time, however, the Chancellor 
made but little progress with his ungrateful task, and 
Charles and Lady Castlemaine became convinced that 
he was more than half-hearted in the matter. At 
length, the former, losing all patience, addressed to 
the Minister a letter couched in terms which plainly 
showed the irritation which he felt at his want of 
success. " Lest you may think," he writes, " that, by 
making a farther stir in the business, you may divert 
me from my resolution, which all the world shall never 
do, I wish I may be unhappy in this world and in 
the world to come, if I fail in the least degree of what 
I am resolved, which is of making my Lady Castlemaine 
of my wife's bedchamber, and whoever I find endeavour- 
ing to hinder this resolution of mine, except it be only 
to myself, I will be his enemy to the last moment of 
my life." Finding that there was no help for it if 
he wished to maintain his own position, Clarendon 
succeeded in overcoming the opposition of the Queen ; 
and at the beginning of September the King and Queen 
and Lady Castlemaine were seen riding together in the 
same coach, and the pacification of the royal household 
seemed to be complete. 

Lady Castlemaine had not remained long at Rich- 
mond, for, learning that her husband had gone to 
France, she promptly returned to Westminster, with 
all her goods and chattels. His lordship soon returned 
too, and on the day of the Queen's arrival at Whitehall 
from Hampton Court, Pepys saw them both watching 



16 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the pageant from the roof of the Banqueting House 
though not together. " I glutted myself with looking 
on her," he writes, " but methought it was strange to 
see her lord and her upon the same place walking up 
and down without taking notice one of another, only 
at first entry he put off his hat, and she made him a 
very civil salute, but afterwards took no notice of one 
another ; but both of them now and then would take 
their child, which the nurse held in her arms, and 
dandle it." 

The diarist also relates an incident which shows 
that there must have been good points in the character 
of the favourite, notwithstanding what certain writers 
have maintained to the contrary : 

" One thing more, there happened a scaffold below 
to fall, and we feared some hurt, but there was none, 
but she of all the ladies only run down among the 
common rabble to see what hurt was done, and did 
take care of a child that received some little hurt, 
which methought was so noble. Anon, there came 
one there booted and spurred that she talked long 
with, and by and by, she being in her hair, she put on 
his hat, which was but an ordinary one, to keep the 
wind off. But methinks it became her mightily, as 
everything else do."* 

As will be gathered from the foregoing, our diarist 
was at this time, and indeed for long afterwards, a 
fervent admirer of Lady Castlemaine, or, at any rate, 
of her charms, and he seems to have admired her as 
much in lighter costumes as when in " full panoply ; " 
indeed, he assures us that even a glimpse of her laced 

* Pepys's Diary, August 23, 1662. 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 17 

smock and linen petticoats, " laced with real lace at 
the bottom," floating in the breeze one May morning 
in the Privy Garden " did him good." In the follow- 
ing October, he tells us of a visit which he paid to 
Sir Peter Lely's studio in the Piazza, Covent Garden, 
where among other pictures he saw " the so much 
desired by me picture of my Lady Castlemaine, which 
is a most blessed picture and that I must have a copy 
of." And some weeks later he speaks of visiting the 
engraver Faithorne's and carrying home with him 
" three of my Lady Castlemaine's heads." 

In the late summer of that year, her ladyship had 
official lodgings assigned her hard by the Cockpit at 
Whitehall, which soon became a focus of intrigue against 
Clarendon, in whom the sultana recognized an obstacle 
which it was necessary to remove at all costs. Before 
the end of the year she and her allies had succeeded 
in bringing about the dismissal of the Chancellor's 
old and tried friend, Sir Edward Nicholas, who was 
succeeded in his post of Secretary by Sir John Bennet, 
afterwards Earl of Arlington. 

At the beginning of 1663 it was reported that 
Barbara's influence was declining. The cause of this 
was the appearance upon the scene of a rival beauty, 
in the person of Frances Theresa Stuart, commonly 
known as " La Belle Stuart." The lady in question 
was the elder daughter of Walter Stuart, third son of 
the first Lord Blantyre, whose family was related to 
the Royal House of Stuart. Frances was born about 
the year 1647, and educated in France, of which 
country she had assimilated the tastes, particularly 
in the matter of dress. Pepys tells us that Louis XIV. 

2 



1 8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

" cast his eyes upon her and would fain have had her 
mother, who is one of the most cunning women in 
the world, to let her stay in France, as an ornament 
to his Court." But Mrs. Stuart was not without her 
suspicions as to the Most Christian King's intentions, 
and preferred to accept for her daughter the post of 
maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza. And so, in 
January, 1662, Frances came to England, and Charles 
II. 's sister, the Duchesse d'Orleans, wrote to the King : 

" I would not loose this opportunity of writing to 
you by Mrs. Stewart, who is taking over her daughter 
to become one of the Queen, your wife's, future maids. 
If this were not the reason of her departure, I should 
be very unwilling to let her go, for she is the prettiest 
girl in the world, and one of the best fitted I know to 
adorn a Court." 

Such appeared to be the general opinion at White- 
hall, and the young lady was speedily surrounded by 
admirers, foremost among whom was the King himself, 
whose passion soon became the talk of both Court and 
town. " Meeting Mr. Pierce, walked with him an 
hour in the Matted Gallery," writes Pepys at the 
beginning of February, 1662-3. " Among other things, 
he tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is not at all 
set by by the King ; but that he do doat upon Mrs. 
Stewart* only ; and that to the leaving of all business 
in the world, and to the open slighting of the Queen ; 
that he values not who sees him or stands by him while 
he dallies with her openly, and then privately in her 
chamber below, where the very sentries observe his 
going in and out." 

* At this period unmarried ladies were called Mistress. 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 19 

The writer, despite his admiration for Lady Castle- 
maine, is fain to award the palm to the new beauty 
and professes no surprise that the royal affections were 
being diverted in that direction. Speaking of a visit 
which he paid one July day in 1663 to St. James's Park 
to see their Majesties pass, he observes : " It was the 
finest sight to me, considering their great beauties and 
dress, that ever I did see in my life. But above all, 
Mrs. Stewart in this dress, with her hat cocked and 
a red plume, with her sweet eye, little Roman nose, 
and excellent taille, is now the greatest beauty I ever 
saw, I think, in my life, and if ever woman can, do 
exceed my Lady Castlemaine, at least in this dress, nor 
do I wonder if the King changes, which I verily believe 
is the reason of his coldness to my Lady Castlemaine." 

About this time rumours were current that " La 
Belle Stuart " had become the mistress of the King. 
But the young lady, if she were a little frivolous and 
empty-headed — Anthony Hamilton says that it would 
have been hardly possible for a woman to have less 
wit and more beauty, while her favourite amusements 
appear to have been blindman's buff, hunt the slipper, 
and card-building — knew how to take care of her own 
interests, and she had shrewd advisers in her mother 
and Henrietta Maria. In November, Lord Sandwich 
told Pepys, that Buckingham, Arlington and one or 
two other unscrupulous courtiers had formed them- 
selves into " a committee for the getting of Mrs. Stewart 
for the King, but that she proves a cunning slut, and is 
advised at Somerset House by the Queen-Mother and 
her [own] mother, and so all the plot is spoiled and the 
whole committee broke." 

2* 



20 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Lady Castlemaine naturally bitterly resented the 
King's infatuation for her young rival, and sought 
revenge by encouraging fresh admirers, among whom 
were Harry Jermyn and Sir Charles Berkeley. The 
latter was reported to have been seen by Captain Ferrers, 
an officer of the Guards, in her ladyship's bedchamber 
at the hour when she retired to rest, though this may 
have been merely idle gossip. Nevertheless, though 
his Majesty was so far from neglecting his sultana 
that he spent on an average four evenings a week at 
her lodgings, he for a long time refused to acknowledge 
her second son, Henry Fitzroy, afterwards created Duke 
of Grafton, who came into the world on September 
20, 1663. By way of consolation, however, he handed 
over to the mother all the Christmas presents which 
he had received from the peers. 

Shortly afterwards, Lady Castlemaine's conversion to 
the Church of Rome was announced, a step which may 
have been taken in the hope of pleasing her royal lover, 
who, as we have seen, was secretly desirous of joining 
the same communion. " If the Church of Rome," 
remarked Stillingfleet, " has got no more by her than 
the Church of England has lost, the matter will not be 
much." 

On September 5, 1664, Lady Castlemaine gave birth 
to her fourth child, and a month later, to the great 
indignation of Charles, was publicly rebuked by three 
masked men, while walking in St. James's Park, accom- 
panied only by a maid and a little page. " They even 
went so far as to remind her that the mistress of 
Edward IV. [Jane Shore] died on a dunghill, scorned 
and abandoned by everybody. You can well imagine 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 21 

that the time seemed long to her, for the park extends 
over a larger space than from Reynard's to the Pavilion. 
As soon as she was in her bedroom, she fainted. The 
King being informed of this, ran to her, caused all the 
gates to be shut, and all the people to be found in 
the park to be arrested. Seven or eight persons who 
happened thus to be caught were brought in, but 
could not be identified."* 

During the Plague year Lady Castlemaine migrated 
with the Court to Hampton Court and Oxford, and on 
December 28 Merton College had the honour of being 
the birthplace of another son, George Fitzroy, after- 
wards created Duke of Northumberland. 

Soon after the return of their Majesties to White- 
hall, the countess received orders to quit the Court, 
in consequence of a spiteful remark she had made about 
Charles in the presence of the Queen. But the dis- 
grace was only a momentary one, for, if the affection 
of the King for her was decreasing, her tyranny held 
him in subjection; and in the summer of 1667 the 
easy-going monarch is said to have been obliged to beg 
her pardon on his knees for his well-founded suspicions 
in regard to her intimacy with Harry Jermyn. The 
reconciliation was sealed by the gift of 5,600 ounces 
of plate from the jewel-house. 

Immense sums, it may here be mentioned, were 
lavished at different times upon the favourite, who 
was as sordid and rapacious as she was depraved. Three 
months after the Restoration (August 20, 1660), she 
was granted, by letters patent, a mortgage upon, or 

* Letter of Cominges, French Ambassador in England, to Lionne, October 2, 
1664, cited by M. Jusserand, " A French Ambassador at the Court of Charles II." 



22 RIVAL SULTANAS 

pension from, the Mint of " twopence per tale out of 
every pound weight troy of silver money which should 
henceforth be coined by virtue of any warrant or 
indenture made or to be made by his Majesty, his 
heirs, and successors, from the 9th of August, 1660, for 
21 years." By letters patent dated January 19, 1664, 
she was granted .£4,700 a year out of the revenue of 
the Post Office. Besides these, she had several other 
pensions and was concerned in the promotion of various 
grants, monopolies and other sources of revenue, and 
in the sale of public offices and places about the Court. 
But, great as must have been her income, it was all too 
small for her expenditure, for she was wildly extrava- 
gant and a prodigious gambler, winning or losing as 
much as .£25,000 at cards in a single night ; and in the 
winter of 1666 the King paid .£30,000 out of the privy 
purse to settle her debts. 

Meanwhile, Charles continued his pursuit of " La 
Belle Stuart " with unremitting ardour ; but, though 
that young lady had no objection to receiving the 
splendid jewels which he showered upon her, he got 
nothing but kisses in return,* and even an offer to 
create her a duchess and to " rearrange his seraglio," 
failed to overcome her resistance. 

There can be no doubt that the King's feeling for the 
beautiful maid of honour approached nearer to what 
may be called love than any other of his libertine attach- 
ments. As early as 1663, when Catherine of Braganza 
was so ill that Extreme Unction had to be administered, 

* But she appears to have been generally credited with giving a good deal 
more, for in August, 1666, Pepys tells us that he had been informed " how for 
certain Mrs. Stewart do do everything with the King that a mistress should do." 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 23 

a rumour was current that, in the event of the Queen's 
death, Frances Stuart might succeed her. " I despair 
of her [the Queen's] recovery," wrote the French 
Ambassador, Cominges, to Louis XIV. ..." The King 
seems to be deeply affected. Well! he supped none 
the less yesterday with Madame de Castlemaine, and 
had his usual talk with Mile. Stewart, of whom he is 
excessively fond. There is already a talk of his marrying 
again, and everybody gives him a new wife according 
to his own inclination ; and there are some who do not 
look beyond England to find one for him." 

In January, 1667, Miss Stuart's hand was sought 
by her kinsman Charles Stuart, third Duke of Rich- 
mond and sixth Duke of Lennox, who had only buried 
his second wife two or three weeks before. The King 
appeared to offer no objection, "pretending to take 
care of her that he would have good settlements made 
for her," says Bishop Burnet, adding that " he hoped 
by that means to have broken the matter decently, 
for he knew the Duke of Richmond's affairs were in 
disorder." But in secret, fearful of losing his inamorata, 
he sent for Archbishop Sheldon and inquired of him 
whether the Church of England would allow of 
a divorce, in a case where both parties were consent- 
ing and one lay under a natural incapacity for having 
children. Sheldon asked time for consideration, and, 
while he was pondering the matter, the Duke of Rich- 
mond and Miss Stuart effected a romantic elopement. 
One dark and stormy night, the maid of honour stole 
out of her rooms in Whitehall and joined her lover at 
the Bear Tavern, on the Southwark side of London 
Bridge, and " they stole away into Kent without the 



24 RIVAL SULTANAS 

King's leave."* Charles, when he learned the news, 
was " furious as a satyr who has missed his clutch at a 
wood-nymph." f He suspected that Clarendon had 
got wind of his project of divorce through Sheldon, 
and had incited the Duke of Richmond to frustrate 
it by a prompt elopement. Burnet relates how on the 
night that Frances Stuart fled from Whitehall, the 
Chancellor's son, Lord Cornbury, who was quite un- 
aware of what had occurred, was going towards her 
apartments, when he met the King coming out " full 
of fury, and he, suspecting that Lord Cornbury was 
in this design, spoke to him as one in a rage that forgot 
all decency, and for some time would not hear Lord 
Cornbury speak in his own defence." The bishop 
adds that Charles's exasperation against Clarendon 
over this affair was responsible for his decision to 
deprive him of the Seals. Burnet probably exaggerates, 
for the Minister's suspected intervention between the 
King and the object of his passion was not the only 
cause of his Majesty's desire to get rid of him. But, 
as Masson points out, " it is certain that some such 
motives did mingle at last with Charles's other reasons 

* Pepys's Diary, April 3, 1667. Elsewhere Pepys tells us that he had it 
from Evelyn that, after the elopement, Frances Stuart had said to a certain 
nobleman that " she was come to that pass as to resolve to have married any 
gentleman of £1,500 a year that would have her in honour : for it was come to 
that pass that she could not longer continue at Court without prostituting 
herself to the King, whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more 
than other had, or he ought to have, as to dalliance. She told this lord that 
she had reflected upon the occasion she had given the world to think her a bad 
woman, and that she had no way but to marry and leave the Court, rather 
in this way of discontent than otherwise, that the world might see that she 
sought not anything but honour." 

t Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 




FRANCES STUART, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND (" LA BELLE STUART") 

From a photograph by W. J. Roberts, after a painting, by Sir Peter Lely 
at Goodwood, reproduced trow Lord March's "A Duke and his Friends." 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 25 

for throwing him overboard, and that Clarendon did not 
think it beneath him to protest to Charles himself his 
innocence in the matter of Miss Stewart's marriage."* 

As for the new Duchess of Richmond, his Majesty's 
anger against her was by no means softened by the receipt 
of a bulky packet which, when opened, was found to 
contain all the presents of jewellery which he had 
given her ; and in a letter to his well-loved sister and 
confidante, Henrietta, Duchesse d'Orleans, he thus 
expresses his wounded feelings : 

" You may think me ill-natured, but if you consider 
how hard a thing 'tis to swallow an injury done by a 
person I had so much tendernesse for, you will in some 
degree excuse the resentment I use towards her : you 
know my good-nature enough to believe that I could 
not be so severe if I had not great provocation. I 
assure you her carriage towards me has been as bad as 
a breach of faith and friendship can make it, there- 
fore I hope you will pardon me if I cannot so soon 
forgett an injury which went so neere my heart." 

Charles, however, was too good-natured a man to 
harbour resentment for any length of time, besides 
which the Queen, who greatly preferred " La Belle 
Stuart " to any other of the royal favourites, seems to 
have acted as mediator, and in matters which did not 
run counter to his own inclinations the King was 
generally ready to oblige his consort. And so, towards 
the end of the year, overtures were made for the return 
of the Duchess of Richmond to Court. These at 
first led to nothing; nevertheless, the spring of 1668 
saw the young lady once more upon the scene of her 

* " Life of Milton," vol. VI. 



26 RIVAL SULTANAS 

former triumphs. In the interval she had had a bad 
attack of smallpox, which disfigured her seductive 
face, though not to any great extent, for the King, 
after his first visit to her, informs his sister Henrietta 
that " he must confesse that this last affliction made 
him pardon all that is past and that he cannot hinder 
himself from wishing her very well." If there were 
any truth in the reports that were going about, we can 
well believe that his Majesty's sentiments towards 
her were of the kindliest, for, towards the end of May, 
Pepys had it on the authority of the omniscient Mr. 
Pierce that the King was " mighty hot upon the 
Duchess of Richmond, insomuch that upon Sunday 
was se'nnight at night, after he had ordered his guards 
and coach to be ready to take him to the Park, he did 
on a sudden take a pair of oars or scullers, and all alone, 
or but one with him, go to Somerset House, and there, 
the garden door not being open, himself clamber over 
the walls to make a visit to her." 

Whether the wife was more complaisant than the maid 
had been is a question upon which historians have 
never been able to agree, but, if she were, it is certain 
that her husband was no party to her dishonour, since 
Charles deemed it advisable to send him out of the way, 
in 1670 to Scotland and in 1671 as Ambassador to 
Denmark. Here, at the end of the following year, he 
died, and, as he left no male issue, his titles reverted 
to Charles II. as his nearest collateral heir, who, as will 
presently be related, bestowed them upon his natural 
son by Louise de Keroualle. 

The widowed duchess, who soon after her return to 
Court had been appointed lady of the Bedchamber to 



THE EARLY LOVES OF CHARLES II 27 

the Queen, had several suitors for her hand, but she 
did not marry again. She died on October 15, 1702, 
in the Roman Catholic communion, and was buried in 
Westminster Abbey, in the Duke of Richmond's vault 
in Henry VII.'s chapel. 

Of the numerous portraits of " La Belle Stuart " the 
best known are Lely's painting at Windsor ; another 
by Lely in the Duke of Richmond's collection, in which 
she appears as " Pallas," and the painting by Johnson 
at Kensington Palace. She also sat as model to John 
Roettiers for the figure of Britannia on our copper 
coins, and for the Peace of Breda medal (1667), where 
she is represented seated at the foot of a rock, with the 
legend, Favente Deo. She figured in a similar design 
on the Naval Victories' medal in 1667, and the same 
year a special medal was struck in her honour, with 
Britannia on the reverse. 

After the elopement of Frances Stuart with the 
Duke of Richmond, Lady Castlemaine's supremacy at 
Court seemed more assured than ever, insomuch that 
Louis XIV. directed his Ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, 
to lavish every possible attention on the favourite, in 
the hope of coaxing State secrets out of her. The 
Ambassador did not fail to follow these instructions, 
and paid the countess the most assiduous court ; but 
he very quickly perceived that she was too much 
dominated by the passion of the moment for any 
reliance to be placed on her support. 

At the end of August came the fall of Clarendon, an 
event to which the persistent hostility of Lady Castle- 
maine and her faction had largely contributed. She had 



28 RIVAL SULTANAS 

openly expressed her desire to see the Minister's head 
on a charger, and when she heard that he was returning 
from his final audience of the King, she rushed out 
in her smock into her aviary overlooking Whitehall, 
" anxious to read in the saddened air of her distinguished 
enemy some presage of his fall," and bandied jests with 
the courtiers at the great statesman's expense. " The 
Chancellor's disgrace," says Pepys, " was certainly de- 
signed in my Lady Castlemayne's chamber ; and that 
when he went for the King on Monday morning she 
was in bed, though about twelve o'clock, and ran out 
in her smock into her aviary looking into Whitehall 
Garden ; and thither her woman brought her her night- 
gown [dressing-gown], and stood joying herself at the 
old man's going away ; and several of the gallants of 
Whitehall, of which there were many standing to see 
the Chancellor's return, did talk to her in her bird-cage, 
among others Blaneford [Louis de Duras, Marquis de 
Blanquefort], telling her she was the bird of Paradise." 

What a picture ! A rapacious courtesan gloating over 
the disgrace of the greatest statesman of his time — the 
man who had consolidated the Restoration — and that 
group of rakes and pimps and gamesters fawning upon 
her! 

But though her rival had left the Court for a time and 
her enemy for ever, Barbara Villiers's own domination 
was drawing to a close ; and the King, weary of her in- 
fidelities, her greed, and her ill-humour, was about to 
inflict upon her the mortification of having an actress 
as a competitor for his favours, before finding the en- 
chantress who was to lure him completely away. 



CHAPTER II 

THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 

'T^HE rallying-point of the great Anti-Puritan re- 
action which followed the Restoration was the 
theatre. Nor is this surprising when we consider how 
much the drama had suffered under Puritan rule and 
how well fitted it was to give expression to all the 
pleasures of life which the " saints " had striven to 
trample under foot. Since 1647, indeed, the theatres 
had been suppressed altogether, the players declared 
to be rogues, the exercise of their profession forbidden 
under the severest penalties, and persons found wit- 
nessing a stage-play punished by fines. Nevertheless, 
attempts were made by some of the bolder spirits of 
the persecuted profession to revive their old trade 
privately, and in the winter of 1648 a company formed 
out of the scattered members of several began with 
extreme caution to give performances at the Cockpit, 
in Drury Lane. They continued undisturbed for three 
or four days, when " a party of foot-soldiers beset the 
house, surprised them about the middle of the play, 
and carried 'em away in their habits, not admitting 
them to shift, to Hatton House, then a prison, where 
29 



3 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

they detained them some time, plundered them of their 
clothes, and let them loose again." * 

When Cromwell became Protector, there was a slight 
relaxation of the persecution. At Christmas and at 
Battledore Fair, the players used to bribe the officers 
who commanded the Guard at Whitehall, and were, in 
consequence, enabled to act for a few days at the Red 
Bull,f but were sometimes, notwithstanding, disturbed 
by soldiers ; while private performances were not 
infrequently given at different noblemen's houses, and 
in particular at Holland House, at Kensington, " where 
the nobility and gentry who met (but in no great 
numbers) used to make a sum for them, each giving a 
broad piece or the like." X 

In 1656 the rigours of fanaticism were so far relaxed 
that Sir William Davenant's play, The Cruelty of the 
Spaniards, was performed at the Cockpit ; but this 
concession was probably due to Cromwell's desire to 
place that nation before the people in an odious light 
and increase the popularity of the war with Spain. 

As soon as Monk at the head of his army declared for 
the King, the actors who had survived the hard times 
emerged from their hiding-places, and were organized 
into a company by Rhodes, formerly prompter at the 
Blackfriars Theatre, under whom they performed at 
the Red Bull. Rhodes afterwards performed at the 
Cockpit and at Salisbury Court, but before this the best 
of the players had gone over to Thomas Killigrew. 

At the Restoration, the drama, freed from the fetters 

* Historia Histrionica (London, 1699). 

f The site of the Red Bull is now covered by Woodbridge Street. 

X Historia Histrionica (London, 1699). 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 31 

which had so closely confined it for over fifteen years, 
found itself in the enjoyment of a prosperity infinitely 
greater than it had ever before known, for both 
Charles II. and his brother were enthusiastic playgoers, 
and all classes flocked to the theatre with appetites 
sharpened by their long abstinence. The old theatres 
were now reopened, and with every advantage which 
stage properties, new and improved scenery and the 
costliest dresses could lend to help them forward, and 
in London great interest was used for the erection of 
new playhouses. But the King, acting, it is believed, 
on the advice of Clarendon, who desired to do all in 
his power to stem the rising flood of gaiety and dissipa- 
tion, would not allow of more than two — the King's 
Theatre and the Duke's Theatre (so called in compli- 
ment to James, Duke of York). The patent for the 
first was given to Thomas Killigrew, one of the grooms 
of the Chambers, and a dramatist himself ; the second 
was placed under the direction of Sir William Davenant, 
Poet Laureate to Charles II., as he had been to the late 
King, and a successful writer for the stage, while Ben 
Jonson and Massinger were still alive. Davenant 
erected his theatre in Portugal Row, on the south side 
of Lincoln's Inn Fields, and his company began acting 
there in June, 1661. 

Killigrew selected the site of a riding-school in Drury 
Lane, almost exactly on the spot on which the present 
theatre now stands. The ground-rent of the riding- 
yard was .£50 a year, and the cost of erecting the theatre 
£1,500. It was a small house, with but few pretensions 
to architectural beauty, the dimensions of the building 
being 112 feet from east to west and 59 feet from north 



32 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to south. The stage was lighted with wax candles, 
on brass censers or cressets. The pit lay open to the 
weather for the sake of light, but was subsequently 
covered in with a glazed cupola, which, however, 
only imperfectly protected the audience, so that in 
stormy weather the house was thrown into disorder, 
and the people in the pit were fain to rise. The theatre, 
the chief entrance of which was in Little Russell Street, 
not as now in Brydges Street, was first opened on 
April 8, 1663, with a representation of Beaumont and 
Fletcher's play The Humourous Lieutenant* 

The performances at both houses began at three, and 
the prices were : boxes four shillings, pit two and six- 
pence, middle gallery eighteen pence, upper gallery 
one shilling. Ladies in the pit wore vizards or masks, 
and this custom appears to have continued until the 
beginning of the reign of George I., when the practice 
was no longer permitted, the mask being regarded as 
the mark of a courtesan. The middle gallery, we learn 
from Pepys, was long the favourite resort of the diarist 
and his wife. The upper gallery was attended by the 
poorest and the noisiest, as is the case in modern theatres. 
Servants in livery were admitted free as soon as the fifth 
act began. 

An innovation of a highly important character dis- 
tinguished the playhouses of the Restoration from those 
which had preceded the Great Rebellion. This was the 
appearance of women upon the stage. f 

* The hour when the play began grew later with the dinner-hour. Thus in 
Shakespeare's time they began at one, while in Congreve's the curtain did not 
rise until four o'clock. 

f Mr. Cecil Chesterton, in his charming monograph on Nell Gwyn, speaks of 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 33 

From the earliest epoch of the Stage in England 
until the theatres were silenced at the outbreak of 
the Civil War, female characters had invariably been 
played by men. In 1629 a company of French actors, 
in which women were included, had appeared at the 
Blackfriars and afterwards at the Red Bull and the 
Fortune. But very great hostility appears to have been 
manifested against them, and it was only after the 
Restoration that the new system became acclimatized 
here. " Whereas," runs Davenant's patent for the 
Duke's Theatre, " the women's parts in plays have 
hitherto been acted by men, at which some have taken 
offence, we do give leave that for the time to come 
all women's parts be acted by women." Nevertheless, 
for several years after this boys and young men con- 
tinued to share the heroines of tragedy and comedy 
with the actresses, and appear, in some instances, to 
have more than held their own with the opposite 
sex in the estimation of the public. Thus, on January 
3, 1667, Pepys notes that he saw Ben Jonson's Silent 
Woman with " Kineston the boy " as Epiccene ; and 
records his impression that, in female attire, he was " the 
prettiest woman in the whole house, and as a man, 
likewise did appear the handsomest man in the house." 



two important changes ; the other being the introduction of scenery. This is a 
common error. It is true that in the Historia Histrionica, published in 1699, 
it is distinctly stated that scenery was first introduced upon the stage by Dave- 
nant at the Duke's Theatre in 1663. But, as Mr. Baker has pointed out in his 
interesting " History of the London Stage," we know that Ben Jonson and 
Shirley's masques were illustrated by Inigo Jones in a way that would tax the 
powers of even a modern artist ; while " the Elizabethan drama abounds in stage 
directions, which, if every kind of scenic effect were unknown, are perfectly 
meaningless." 

3 



34 RIVAL SULTANAS 

At both the King's and the Duke's Theatres there 
was a perfect galaxy of histrionic talent. At the former 
house the leading actors were Charles Hart and Michael 
Mohun, both of whom had fought in the royal cause 
during the Civil War. Mohun was famous in the roles 
of Iago and Cassius ; while Hart, who was the grand- 
nephew of Shakespeare, rose to the very summit of his 
profession. In the days of Charles I. he had acted 
women's parts at the Blackfriars Theatre with con- 
spicuous success, and he was now even more successful 
in the presentation of masculine characters. He was the 
best Othello that had yet been seen, and so dignified 
and impressive was his acting in the part of Alexander 
that one of the courtiers declared that " Hart might 
teach any king on earth how to comport himself."* 
Then there was John Lacy, famous as a comedian ; 
William Cartwright, who won great renown as Fal- 
staff, and as one of the two Kings of Brentford in the 
farce of the Rehearsal ; Wintershall, celebrated for his 
Cokes in Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, and Kynaston, 
who continued to shine in female parts long after the 
introduction of women to the stage. Among the 
actresses of the troupe were Mrs. Corey, the original 
Widow Blackacre in Wycherley's Plain Dealer ; Rebecca, 
or " Beck " Marshall, reported, though incorrectly, to 
be the daughter of the great Presbyterian divine of that 
name, who preached the sermon at the funeral of John 
Pym ; Mrs. Weaver, one of the several actresses 
" spoiled " by Charles II. ; Peg Hughes, who soothed 
the old age of Prince Rupert and had a daughter by 
him called Ruperta, and Mrs. Uphill, first the mistress 

* Roscius Anglicantis. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 35 

and afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Howard, the poet, 
and Mrs. Knipp,* so admired of Mr. Samuel Pepys. 

Foremost of the actors at the Duke's Theatre stood 
the celebrated Thomas Betterton, one of the greatest 
who ever trod the boards of an English theatre. He 
was soon to overshadow all his colleagues, notwith- 
standing that the company contained some excellent 
representatives of both the tragic and the comic art. 
Among them may be mentioned Joseph Harris, originally 
a seal-cutter, and famous in the parts of Romeo, Wolsey 
and Sir Andrew Aguecheek ; William Smith, a barrister 
of Gray's Inn, celebrated as Zanga in Lord Orrery's 
Mustapha ; James Nokes, originally a toyman in Corn- 
hill, famous for his bawling fops and his " good com- 
pany," and Cave Underhill, another finished comedian. 

The women were Mrs. Davenport, who created the 
part of Roxolana in Davenant's Siege of Rhodes and left 
the stage to become the mistress of Aubrey de Vere, 
the twentieth and last Earl of Oxford ; Mary Saunder- 
son, a famous Juliet, afterwards the wife of Betterton ; 
Mrs. Long, the mistress of the Duke of Richmond, 
celebrated for the elegance of her appearance in men's 
clothes ; Mary or Moll Davis, excellent in both singing 
and dancing, who enjoyed for a short time the favour 

• Cunningham says that Mrs. Knipp, who was the wife of a Smithfield horse- 
dealer, whom Pepys describes as " an ill, melancholy, jealous-looking fellow " 
suspected of ill-treating her, was the mistress of the diarist, but it is doubtful if 
their intimacy ever exceeded the bounds of flirtation. The worthy Samuel, we 
suspect, was more of a philanderer than a libertine, and he certainly stood very 
much in awe of Mrs. Pepys, as witness the following : " But that which troubled 
me most was that Knepp (sic) sent by Moll to desire to speak to me after the play, 
and she beckoned to me at the end of the play ; but it was so late that, for fear 
of my wife coming home before me, I was forced to go straight home, which troubled 
me." 

3* 



36 RIVAL SULTANAS 

of the King, and Mrs. Johnson, who likewise excelled 
as a dancer and was famous for her performance of the 
part of Carolina in Shadwell's comedy, Epsom Wells. 

The old stock plays were divided by the two companies. 
Thus, of Shakespeare's, Killigrew had Othello, Julius 
Caesar, Henry the Fourth, The Merry Wives of Windsor, 
and A Midsummer Night's Dream ; while Davenant 
had Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Henry 
the Eighth, Twelfth Night and The Tempest. When, 
however, we read that The Tempest was turned into 
an opera, and Romeo and Juliet given a happy ending, 
which was played on alternate nights with the tragic one, 
to cater for the palates of the less sentimental playgoers, 
it must be admitted that the masterpieces of the old 
dramatists were treated with a sad lack of respect. 

The fact is that the patrons of the Restoration theatre 
seem to have vastly preferred the modern drama to that 
of the past,* and certainly a period which produced 
not only a Dryden and a Wycherley, but such capable 
playwrights as Sir Robert Howard, Sir Charles Sedley, 
Davenant, Killigrew, Cowley, Etherege and Lord 
Orrery was a great one itself. Unhappily, its art re- 
flected only too clearly the licentious morals of the age, 
and was characterized by such studied indecencies 
that, at the performance of a new comedy, ladies seldom 
attended, or, if they did, came masked. 

The wits of Charles found easier way to fame, 
Nor wished for Jonson's art or Shakespeare's flame ; 
Themselves they studied — as they felt they writ — 
Intrigue was plot, obscenity was wit. 

* Pepys describes A Midsummer Night's Dream as ** the most insipid, ridicu- 
lous play that ever he saw in his life." 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 37 

In the pit, with their backs to the stage, stood the 
orange-girls, each with her basket of shining fruit on her 
arm. The price of oranges was very high, usually six- 
pence apiece,* and the same price appears to have been 
paid thirty years later. 

" Half-crown the play, sixpence my orange, cost " 

says one of the characters in Mrs. Behn's Young King, 
produced in 1698. It was considered beneath the 
dignity of a gentleman to haggle over the price, and 
it was the mode to offer the finest orange to the nearest 
masked lady. With " the pert damsels with their 
china-ware," f the gallants of the town were accustomed 
to bandy their jests, which, as may be imagined, were 
not always of the most delicate description, and they 
would appear to have been employed pretty frequently 
in carrying billets-doux to and fro between the pit and 
the wings. The mistress or superior of the girls, was 
familiarly known as Orange Moll, and was acquainted 
with all the gossip of the green-room. Pepys would 
occasionally have " a great deal of discourse with Orange 
Moll ; " and, as we have seen, the fascinating Mrs. 
Knipp, when she desired to speak to the Clerk of the 
Acts, sent Moll with the message. 

On Monday, April 3, 1665, the tragedy of Mustapka, 
the work of that noble playwright the Earl of Orrery, 
was being performed at the Duke's Theatre. Betterton 

• In France, however, the price of oranges would appear to have been much 
higher ; for the son in Moliere's VAvare speaks of purchasing China oranges for 
his mistress as though they were a costly delicacy. 

t D'Urfey, Preface to A Fool's Preferment, 1688. 



38 RIVAL SULTANAS 

played the part of Solymon, his wife that of Roxolana, 
in place of Mrs. Davenport, whom the Earl of Oxford 
had taken from the stage, first to deceive by a mock 
marriage and afterwards to desert, Harris the title- 
part, and Moll Davis, whose bright eyes and pretty 
figure had already, it was whispered, begun to attract 
the attention of the King, that of the Queen of Hun- 
gary. Great care had been taken to produce this now 
long-forgotten tragedy with the utmost magnificence, 
and new scenery had been expressly painted for it. 
But, according to Pepys, who was among the audience, 
" all the pleasure of the play was that the King and 
Lady Castlemaine were present, and pretty, witty Nelly 
at [i. e. of] the King's House and the younger [Rebecca] 
Marshall sat next us, which pleased me mightilye" 

On December 8, 1666, the diarist visited the rival 
playhouse to witness a performance of The English 
Monsieur, by the Hon. Robert Howard, a son of the 
Earl of Berkshire, Dryden's brother-in-law, and writes 
as follows : 

" Myself to the King's playhouse, which troubles 
me, since it hath cost me a forfeit of ten shillings, which 
I have paid, and there did see a good part of The English 
Monsieur, which is a mighty pretty play, very witty 
and pleasant. And the women do very well, and above 
all little Nelly." 

Some weeks later, Pepys attended the Drury Lane 
playhouse on the occasion of a performance of The 
Humourous Lieutenant of Beaumont and Fletcher, which 
he stigmatizes as " a silly play," though he admits 
that Mrs. Knipp's singing pleased him. He appears, 
however, to have found abundant consolation for his 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 39 

disappointment when the curtain fell, for Mrs. Knipp 
took him and his friends behind the scenes and " brought 
us to Nelly, a most pretty woman, who acted the great 
part of Coelia to-day very fine. I kissed her, and so 
did my wife ; and a mighty pretty soul she is. We 
also saw Mrs. Hall, which is my little Roman-nosed 
black girl, that is mighty pretty : she is usually called 
Betty.* Knipp made us stay in a box and see the 
dancing preparatory to to-morrow for The Goblins, 
a play of Suckling, not acted these twenty-five years ;f 
which was pretty ; and so away, pleased with this sight 
also, and specially kissing of Nelly." 

The Nelly mentioned in the above passages, to kiss 
whom gave the writer so much pleasure that, as an 
historian has aptly remarked, it was certainly just as 
well that Mrs. Pepys was present on this occasion, was 
Nell Gwyn, one of the few queens of the left hand 
who not only enjoyed a great popularity during her 
lifetime, but for whom posterity has always preserved 
a warm corner in its heart. 

According to a horoscope of her, which has been 
assigned to Lilly, and is preserved among the Ashmole 
papers in the Museum at Oxford, Nell Gwyn was born 
on February 2, 1 650-1 ; but the place of her birth is 
uncertain. Cunningham says that, when he was at 
Oxford, a certain Dr. John Ireland, an antiquary, 
assured him that she was born in the university town, 
and even named the parish, but there does not appear 
to be any support for this story, beyond the fact that 
two of the titles of her son, the Duke of St. Albans — 

* She was the mistress of Sir Robert Howard. 

t Suckling's play was first played in 1646 at the Blackfriars Theatre. 



4 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

Headington and Burford — were taken from Oxford 
localities. Another tradition ascribes it to the Cole- 
Yard in Drury Lane, a low alley situated on the east or 
City side of the Lane near the Holborn end. 

" The life of Nelly truly shown 

From Cole-yard or Celler to the throne," 

wrote Sir George Etherege in his Lady of Pleasure, 
a bitter satire on Nell. But, since Nell undoubtedly 
passed her early years in Drury Lane, there is an obvious 
reason why her birth should be associated with it, and 
none appear to have urged the claims of the Cole- Yard 
with any force. A third tradition makes Hereford 
her birthplace, and the inhabitants of the capital of the 
cider county seem anxious to claim her as their own. 
Thus the name of the street in which stood the house 
where she is supposed to have been born was towards 
the end of the last century changed fromPipewell Lane 
to Gwyn Street, and in 1883 the then Bishop of Hereford 
gave his consent to the fixing of a memorial tablet to 
Nell Gwyn on the outer face of his garden, to mark 
the site of this house, which had been pulled down in 
1859. The preponderance of modern opinion may be 
said to be in favour of Hereford — the birthplace, by 
the way, of the greatest of English actors, David Garrick 
— but that is not saying much, as there is little or no 
evidence either way. 

The same uncertainty applies to Nell's paternity. 
When she had become prosperous, some subservient 
person found her a coat-of-arms, and her father is said 
to have been one Captain Thomas Gwyn, " of an ancient 
family in Wales." The name Gwyn is certainly of 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 41 

Welsh origin, and, since Hereford is so near to Wales, 
this is an argument in favour of the tradition that she 
was born in that city. But, from the sordid circum- 
stances of her early life, it seems much more probable 
that her father was a man of humble origin.* In a 
catchpenny " Life of Eleanor Gwinn," published in 
1752, she is said to have been the daughter of a tradesman 
in mean circumstances. 

Of Nell's mother more is known. She lived for a 
while with her daughter in Pall Mall, but at the time 
of her death, in 1679, she was living at the Neat 
Houses at Chelsea. Here she fell into the water and 
was drowned, and ill-natured persons declared that she 
was intoxicated at the time. 

" Dy'd drunk with brandy on a common-shore " 

wrote Etherege in the satire referred to ; while a black- 
bordered broadside was circulated entitled, " An Elegy 
upon that never-to-be-forgotten Matron, Old Maddam 
Gwinn, who was unfortunately drowned in her own Fish- 
pond on the 29th of July, 1679." Mrs. Gwyn's Chris- 
tian name was Helena, but her maiden name is unknown. 
A monument to her memory, erected by her daughter 
in the south aisle of the old church of St. Martin's-in- 
the-Fields, states that she was born in that parish,! and 
this is, to some extent, a reason for supposing that Nell 
Gwyn was also born in London. 

• Mr. H. B. Wheatley, Introduction to Cunningham's " Story of Nell Gwyn " 
(edit. 1903). 

f The inscription on the monument was as follows : " Here lies interred the 
body of Helena Gwyn, born in this parish, who departed this life y e 20th of July 
MDCLXXIX, in the lvi yeare of her age." When the church was rebuilt, the 
monument disappeared. 



42 RIVAL SULTANAS 

The only other near relation known to us is her sister 
Rose Gwyn, whose name is mentioned in a sedan chair- 
man's bill, found among Nell's papers after her death, 
and in the codicil to her will. She married a Captain 
John Cassells, a man, it is said, of some fortune, who 
spent it in the service of the Crown and died in 1675, 
leaving her penniless. Charles II. gave her a pension of 
^200 a year, which she continued to receive until the 
accession of William and Mary. Some time before 1687 
she married a Mr. Forster, and is mentioned in her 
sister's will as " Mrs. Rose Forster." Some persons have 
supposed that she was identical with a certain Rose Gwyn 
who was arrested for theft in 1663, and sent to Newgate, 
but subsequently released, because " her father had lost 
all in the royal cause." But of this there is no confirma- 
tory evidence, and it should be remembered that the 
name Gwyn is by no means an uncommon one, and that 
there are many instances of persons bearing it who were 
in no way related to Nell Gwyn. 

Nothing is known with certainty as to Nell Gwyn's 
early years, except that they were passed amid squalid, 
and even worse, surroundings. She lived in the Cole- 
Yard with her mother, and we can imagine her spending 
a good part of her time in playing about the courts and 
alleys of the vicinity, with other dirty and scantily- 
clothed, but merry and light-hearted, children. Those 
years left a mark upon her which was never to be effaced, 
and whether as popular actress or King's mistress, Nell 
Gwyn, with her animal spirits, her quickness of repartee, 
her vulgarity, her good-nature, and her sublime dis- 
regard of the conventionalities, was always at heart the 
gamin of Drury Lane. 




NELL r.i 
by Wright, aiter 



nting by Sir Peter Lely. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 43 

What was the next phase in Nell's life — and it was 
indeed a horrible one — we learn from a passage in 
Pepys : 

" Mr. Pierce tells me," he writes, " that the two 
Marshalls at the King's House are Stephen Marshall's, the 
great Presbyter's daughters ; * and that Nelly and Beck 
Marshall falling out the other day, the latter called the 
other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her : 
' I was but one man's mistress, though I was brought up 
in a brothel to fill strong waters to the gentlemen ; and 
you are a mistress to three or four, though a praying 
Presbyter's daughter.' " 

The house referred to by Nell is believed to have been 
one kept by an infamous woman named Ross, and to 
have been situated in Leuknor Lane, the next turning 
in Drury Lane to the Cole-Yard. It was this woman's 
practice to entrap young girls, whom she trained for 
her foul purposes ; but, until they were old enough to 
submit to their final degradation, they were sent dressed 
as orange-girls to sell fruit at the adjoining theatres. 

" But first the basket her fair arm did suit 
Laden with pippins and Hesperian fruit ; 
This first step raised, to the wondering pit she sold 
The loveh/ fruit smiling with streaks of gold." -j* 

It was in the pit at the King's Theatre that Nell plied 
her trade, and we can well believe that her appearance 
excited the wonder of which the poet speaks. She was 
now apparently in her fifteenth year, small but ex- 
quisitely graceful, with reddish-brown hair, sparkling 
blue eyes, which, when she laughed, became almost 

* This, as we have mentioned elsewhere, is incorrect, 
t Earl of Rochester, A Panegyrick on Nelly. 



44 RIVAL SULTANAS 

invisible, very white teeth, and tiny but perfectly shaped 
feet. 

The girl's unusual attractions saved her from the 
terrible fate which might otherwise have awaited her. 
Oldys, in the account of her life which he wrote for 
Curll's History of the English Stage, states that a certain 
Robert Duncan, whom he believes to have been a mer- 
chant, took a fancy to her from her smart wit, fine shape, 
and the smallness of her feet, and introduced her to the 
stage. This is confirmed by Etherege in his satire, The 
Lady of Pleasure, who adds that in after years, Nell used 
her influence to obtain for Duncan a commission in the 
Guards. In the opinion of Cunningham, the name of 
this patron of Nell was not Duncan, but Dongan, 
and he was identical with a Dongan mentioned by 
Anthony Hamilton in his Memoires of Gramont as 
having succeeded Duras, afterwards Earl of Feversham, 
in the post of lieutenant in the Duke's Life Guards. 
He adds that he had ascertained from official documents 
that there was a Robert Dungan, a lieutenant in the 
Duke's Life Guards, who died in or before 1669. 

Whatever truth there may be in this story, and whether 
or no the mysterious Duncan or Dungan was Nell's 
lover, as some have supposed, it is certain that the girl 
received her training for the profession in which she was 
soon to occupy so prominent a place from the actor 
Charles Hart, with perhaps some assistance from his 
colleague, John Lacy, the leading comedian of the King's 
Theatre. 

Mr. Cecil Chesterton, who persists in seeing every- 
thing connected with Nell through rose-coloured 
spectacles, is very angry with Rochester and Etherege, 



THE BEGINNINGS OF NELL GWYN 45 

who assert that Hart exacted a price for his assistance, 
and declares that " there is absolutely no shadow of 
evidence to support such a charge." But Rochester 
and Etherege were not alone in making it ; and, as Nell 
herself on one occasion was heard to call Charles II. her 
Charles the third — meaning that her first lover was 
Charles Hart, her second Charles Sackville, Lord Buck- 
hurst, and afterwards Earl of Dorset, of whom we shall 
speak presently, and her third Charles Stuart — there 
would not appear to be very much doubt about the 
matter. 



CHAPTER III 

NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 

'TpHERE can be little doubt that Nell Gwyn was 
a born comedienne, and a comedienne whose quali- 
ties were peculiarly suited to the lively, witty, and de- 
cidedly " broad " comedy of the Restoration. In tragedy, 
on the other hand, for which she was quite unfitted, 
she appears to have been a dismal failure, and Pepys, so 
enthusiastic an admirer of her farcical impersonations, 
condemns her performance of tragic parts in unmeasured 
terms. Thus, when on August 22, 1667, he saw her in 
the part of Cydaria, Montezuma's daughter, in Dryden's 
Indian Emperor, he expressed his opinion that it was 
quite unsuitable for her, and that she did it " most 
basely." Neither was he any better pleased when he 
saw her again in this character some weeks later 
(November 11, 1667), since he informs us that "Nell's 
ill-speaking of a great part made him mad," nor yet 
with her acting as Samira in Robert Howard's 
Surprisal, on December 26, a part which, he says, she 
spoiled. 

Nell herself was fully conscious of her own limitations, 
and several of the epilogues written for her by Dryden 
46 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 47 

and others, in the delivery of which she probably sur- 
passed any other actress of her time, expressed her dislike 
of " serious parts." 

" I know you in your hearts 

Hate serious plays — as I hate serious parts," 

she says in the epilogue to that very dull play The 
Duke of Lerma, which Pepys assures us she spoke " most 
excellently." And again, in the epilogue to Dryden's 
Tyrannick Love : 

" I die 
Out of my calling in a tragedy." 

Nell's first appearance on the stage took place in 1665, 
in the very part in Dryden's Indian Emperor in which 
her acting so disgusted the critical Mr. Pepys when he 
saw her two years later. But we have no record of what 
parts she undertook in the interval between this and her 
appearance in James Howard's English Monsieur at the 
end of the following year, to which reference has already 
been made. The part which she took, that of Lady 
Wealthy, a rich widow, with a good heart and a rich vein 
of humour, was one peculiarly adapted to her talents, 
and had in all probability been expressly written for her ; 
and she no doubt well deserved the praise bestowed upon 
her by Pepys. 

At the beginning of 1666-j, Nell, as we have seen, 
scored another success as Celia in The Humourous Lieu- 
tenant of Beaumont and Fletcher, a play that was long 
a favourite with the public, and was frequently acted 
throughout the reign of Charles II. But her greatest 
triumph was achieved a fortnight later, in the part of 
Florimel in Dryden's tragi-comedy of Secret Love, or 



48 RIVAL SULTANAS 

The Maiden Queen. The plot of this admirable play, 
which is generally considered the best which Dryden ever 
wrote, had been suggested to the author by the King, 
who called it " his play." The dramatis persona con- 
sisted, singularly enough, of eight female and only three 
male parts, that of Celadon being played by Hart. 

The play was produced on February 2, 1666-j, before 
a crowded and distinguished audience, which included 
the King and the Duke of York — and Mr. and Mrs. 
Pepys, and met with a very cordial reception, for not 
only had the author surpassed himself, but he was most 
fortunate in his interpreters, all the parts being admir- 
ably acted. Particularly excellent were Hart, in the 
character of Celadon, and Nell, in that of Florimel. The 
latter, indeed, had to sustain the chief burden of the 
piece, and was seldom off the stage, while in the fifth 
act she appeared in boy's clothes, and danced a jig to 
the great delight of the audience. The enthusiasm of 
Pepys at Nell's acting knew no bounds. " The truth 
is," he says, " there is a comical part done by Nell, which 
is Florimel, that I never can hope to see the like done 
again by man or woman. ... So great performance of 
a comical part was never, I believe, in the world before 
as Nell did this, both as a mad girl, then most and best of 
all when she comes in as a young gallant, and hath the 
motion and carriage of a spark the most that ever I saw 
any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire her." 
Nor, though he witnessed the play on two subsequent 
occasions, did the Clerk of the Acts find cause to modify 
this opinion. He calls it, after his second visit on March 
25, an " excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry 
part as cannot be better done in nature ; " while after 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 49 

his third visit, two months later, he declares that " it 
is impossible to have Florimel's part, which is the most 
comical that ever was made, ever done better than it is 
by Nelly." 

Nell's success upon the stage had by this time raised 
her far above the degrading surroundings of her early 
years. She still lived in Drury Lane, but it was at the 
fashionable — the Strand end — of that thoroughfare, 
where stood the town residences of the Earl of Anglesey, 
long Lord Privy Seal, and the Earls of Clare and Craven, 
after whom Clare Market and Craven Yard were named. 
The house in which she lodged, which was pulled down 
in 1 891, but has since been rebuilt, stood opposite the 
gate of Craven House, at the top of Maypole Alley ; 
and from it could be seen the great Maypole in the 
Strand, surmounted by a crown and vane with the 
royal arms richly gilded, which, after being hewn down 
by the Puritans, had been set up again immediately 
after the Restoration, amid great rejoicings. Here 
it was that Pepys saw her on May Day, 1667, and the 
sight seems to have left a very pleasant impression 
on his mind. 

" Thence to Westminster," he writes, " in the way, 
meeting many milkmaids, with their garlands upon 
their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, and 
saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodgings' door in 
Drury Lane, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking 
upon them. She seemed a mighty pretty creature." 

A mighty pretty creature she seemed to a good many 
other persons beside the Clerk of the Acts, as will be 
gathered from another passage from the same writer : 

" Thence called Knepp from the King's House, 

4 



So RIVAL SULTANAS 

where, going in for her, the play being done, I saw 
Beck Marshall come dressed off the stage and look 
mighty fine and pretty and noble ; and also Nell in her 
boy's clothes, mighty pretty. But Lord ! their con- 
fidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon 
as they come off the stage, and how confident they are 
in their talk ! " * 

Men have hovered about actresses at all times, some- 
times with honourable or at least innocent, but far 
more often, we fear, with other, intentions ; but there 
could be no possible doubt as to the intentions of the 
gentlemen of whom Pepys speaks. For the women of 
the playhouses of the Restoration were regarded as 
ladies of very easy virtue indeed, and ready enough to 
pick up. any handkerchief that might be thrown to them, 
provided the owner, either on account of rank or wealth 
or good looks, happened to find favour in their sight. 
One has only to turn to the prologues or epilogues of 
the plays of that period to find that the excessive 
sensibility of the actress was a common topic with the 
dramatist, who bewails it, not so much on moral grounds, 
as because it tended to make them proud and insolent, 
and despise their calling, and sometimes to deprive the 
stage of their services altogether. Davenant, foreseeing 
these inconveniences, boarded his four principal actresses 
in his own house, but, with the single exception of Mary 
Saunderson, who became the wife of Betterton, the 
precaution proved altogether ineffective. 

Such being the moral atmosphere of the theatre, 
it was only to be expected that Nell should sooner 
or later surrender to the importunities of one of her 

• May 7, 1668. 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 51 

numerous admirers ; but it certainly says something for 
the good taste of the ex-orange-girl that the favoured 
lover should have been regarded as the best-bred man 
of his age. 

" Mr Pierce tells us," writes Pepys, " under date 
July 13, 1667, that my Lord Buckhurst hath got Nell 
away from the King's House, lives with her, and gives 
her {100 a year, so as she hath sent her parts to the 
house, and will act no more." 

Among the reckless, witty, profligate courtiers of the 
Restoration, no figure is more interesting than that 
of Charles Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards the 
magnificent Earl of Dorset. The eldest son of Richard 
Sackville, fifth Earl of Dorset, and Frances, daughter 
of Lionel Cranfield, fifth Earl of Middlesex, he was 
born on January 24, 1637-8, and was therefore at this 
time in his thirty-first year. Probably, owing to the 
confusion of the times, he was not sent to either Uni- 
versity, but educated under private tutors, and spent 
some time in Italy. Returning to England at the 
Restoration, he was elected to the House of Commons, 
as member for East Grinstead ; " but," says his profound 
admirer, the courtly Prior, " turned his parts rather 
to books and conversation than to politics." In other 
words, he became a courtier, a wit, and a profligate, 
and for some years seems to have led a very dissipated 
life. In February, 1662-3, he and his brother Edward 
and three other gentlemen were arrested on a charge 
of robbing and killing a tanner named Hoppy, near 
Newington, and lodged in Newgate. Their defence 
was that they mistook Hoppy for a highwayman whom 
they were pursuing, and the money which they found 

4* 



52 RIVAL SULTANAS 

upon him for stolen property ; and the prosecution was 
dropped. In the following year, he was mixed up with 
Sir Charles Sedley, the poet, author of that charming 
lyric, " Phillis is my only joy," but in his youthful 
days the most abandoned rake about town, in a dis- 
graceful drunken frolic at the notorious Cock Tavern, 
in Bow Street, kept by a woman called Oxford Kate. 
For this escapade, Pepys tells us, Sedley received " a 
most high reproof" from the Lord Chief Justice, who 
informed him that " it was for him and such wicked 
wretches as he was that God's anger and judgments 
hung over them ; " and his lordship also animadverted 
very severely on the conduct of Lord Buckhurst, re- 
marking that " it would have more become him to 
have been at his prayers, begging God's forgiveness 
[for the death of the tanner Hoppy] than now running 
into such courses again." According to Pepys, Sedley 
was bound over in the sum of .£5,000.* 

Buckhurst found better employment for his energies 
shortly afterwards by volunteering for the fleet fitted 
out against the Dutch and taking an honourable part 

• Dr. Johnson, in the biography of Charles Sackville in his " Lives of the 
Poets," gives the following account of this affair : 

" Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles Sedley and Sir 
Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow Street, by Covent Garden, and 
going into the balcony, exposed themselves to the populace in very indecent 
postures. At last, as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued 
the populace in such profane language that the public indignation was awakened ; 
the crowd attempted to force the door, drove in the performers with stones, 
and broke the windows of the house. For this misdemeanour they were indicted, 
and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds ; what was the sentence of the others 
is not known. Sedley employed [Henry] Killigrew and another to procure a 
remission from the King, but [mark the friendship of the dissolute !] they begged 
the fine for themselves and exacted it to the last groat." 




;harles sackville, earl of Dorset 

(Lord Buckhurst) 
From an engraving alter S. Harding 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 53 

in the great naval battle of June 3rd, 1663. On 
this occasion he composed his famous song, " To all 
you ladies now at land," an admitted masterpiece of 
its kind.* 

On his return, he resumed his dissolute course of life, 
and in 1668 we find Pepys classing him with Sedley as 
a pattern rake, " running up and down all night, almost 
naked, through the streets ; and at last fighting and 
being beat by the watch and clapped up all night." 
Yet, rake and madcap though he was, Buckhurst 
possessed great qualities. He had a genuine love of 
literature, and not only wrote verses of undeniable 
merit, " the effusions of a man of wit, gay, vigorous, 
and airy,"f as Dr. Johnson describes them, and some 
of the severest and most refined satires we possess, 
but was the friend of all the poets of eminence of his 
time, as he was afterwards, when he succeeded to his 
father's title and estates, the most munificent patron 
of men of genius that this country has seen. He be- 
friended Dryden, Butler, Wycherley and many others ; 
he was consulted, if we may believe Prior, by Waller for 
verse, by Sprat for prose, and by Charles II., whose 
favour he retained throughout the whole of that 
monarch's life, touching the portraits of Sir Peter 
Lely. He was " the best good-hearted man," who 
kept open house for his friends — and surely no man ever 
had so many friends ! — and a table furnished with an 
abundance which has seldom been surpassed, and at 
which a freedom reigned which made every one of his 

• Prior states that Buckhurst actually wrote these verses on the night before 
the battle, b> t, according to Lord Orrery, he only retouched them. 
t Dr. Johnson, " Lives of the Poet*." 



54 RIVAL SULTANAS 

guests imagine himself at home. Little wonder then 
that he should have had a Pope to write his epitaph 
and a Prior his panegyric, or that the cool judgment 
of historians should have echoed the admiration of his 
contemporaries ! " He was," writes Horace Walpole, 
" the finest gentleman of the voluptuous court of 
Charles II. He had as much wit as his master or his 
contemporaries, Buckingham and Rochester, without 
the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principle, 
or the earl's want of thought."* 

It was to Epsom that Buckhurst had carried off his 
mistress. The Surrey town was, of course, not yet the 
scene of those races which have since made it famous, 
but, as a health resort, it was at this period, and until 
nearly half a century later, only inferior in reputation 
to Tunbridge Wells. The waters, to the medicinal 
properties of which, real or imaginary,! tne place was 
indebted for its prosperity, appear to have enjoyed 
a local celebrity so far back as the latter years of 
Queen Elizabeth ; but by the middle of the seventeenth 
century their fame had spread far and wide, so that 
persons are said to have come from the Continent to 
drink them ; while in the time of Charles II. it was a 
common occurrence for doctors to advise a visit to 
Epsom. Thus, in the Domestic State Papers, under 
date June 29, 1668, we read : " Chatham Dockyard. 
John Owen to Pepys. " I beg leave of absence for 
12 days, being afflicted with . . . and advised to drink 

• " Noble Authors." 

f Lord Rosebery, in his interesting introduction to Mr. Gordon Home's work, 
" Epsom : its history and surroundings," expresses the opinion that visitors were 
cured of their ailments " at least as much by air, abstinence, exercise, and a 
healing faith " as by the virtues of the waters. 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 55 

Epsom waters ; " while in the following August one 
Ph. Pett writes from Chatham to the Navy Commis- 
sioners : " I beg leave for a fortnight, through ill- 
health, being advised by my physician to drink Epsom 
waters."* 

But Epsom, although royalty occasionally honoured 
it by its presence, and there was generally a sprinkling 
of courtiers among the visitors, was never a fashionable 
resort in the sense that Tunbridge Wells was at this 
time or Bath at a later date. It was the resort rather 
of the richer citizens of London than of the aristocracy, 
and the haberdashers and comfit-makers of ShadwelPs 
comedy of Epsom Wells were much more in evidence 
there than their customers who dwelt west of Temple 
Bar. 

At Epsom the lovers installed themselves in a house 
adjoining the King's Head Inn,f with Buckhurst's boon 
companion, Sedley, to bear them company and help 
them make game of the pursy " cits " and their wives 
as they passed by on their way to the wells. " To the 
King's Head [Epsom]," writes Pepys, under date July 
14, " where our coachman carried us, and there had an 

• Cited by Mr. Gordon Home, " Epsom : its history and surroundings." 

f Mr. Gordon Home's book contains an interesting note on this house : 
" This house next door to the King's Head, where Nelly stayed, is still standing, 
the ground floor being utilised as a grocer's shop. Unfortunately, the interior 
has been altered too much to leave anything suggestive of that time, and one is 
forced to be content with knowing that the Court favourite occupied two little 
bay-windowed rooms overlooking the street, one of them being used as a bed- 
room and the other as a sitting-room. During a comparatively recent altera- 
tion, a very small doorway was discovered in one of the walls of the left-hand 
room as one faces the building. This might have been used as a secret entrance 
or exit ; but it is entirely covered up with plaster and wall-paper now, so that it 
it impossible to examine it without having the wall pulled to pieces." 



56 RIVAL SULTANAS 

ill room for us to go into, but the best in the house 
that was not taken up. Here we called for drink and 
bespoke dinner, and heard that my lord Buckhurst and 
Nelly are lodged at the next house, and Sir Charles 
Sidly [Sedley] with them, and keep a merry house. 
Poor girl ! I pity her, but more the loss of her at the 
King's House." 

These three lively sparks did not keep merry house 
long at Epsom, though, while they did, we can well 
believe that it must have been a very merry house 
indeed, with something doubtless much more sustaining 
than the beverage for which the town was then 
famed flowing pretty freely to assist the flow of wit 
of perhaps the wittiest woman and two of the 
wittiest men of their time. For the love-affair of 
Buckhurst and Nell was but a midsummer madness ; 
by August his fickle lordship had already had enough 
of his new inamorata, and before the end of the 
month Nell was back at the King's Theatre, playing 
some of her old parts. Pepys was somewhat pre- 
mature in deploring the fact that she was lost to 
the stage. 

" To the King's playhouse," writes our diarist on 
August 26, " and saw The Surprisal, a very mean play, 
I thought ; or else it was because I was out of humour ; 
and but very little company in the house. Sir W. 
Pen and I had a great deal of discourse with [Orange] 
Moll, she tells us that Nell is already left by my Lord 
Buckhurst, and that he makes sport of her, and swears 
that she hath had all she could get of him ; and Hart, 
her great admirer, now hates her ; and that she is very 
poor, and hath lost my Lady Castlemaine, who was her 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 57 

great friend also ; but she is come to the house, but 
is neglected by them all." 

Poor Nell's life at this period would not appear to 
have been a very happy one. Her conquest of so 
desirable an admirer as my Lord Buckhurst must have 
caused a good many heartburnings in the green-room, 
and its abrupt termination would afford her jealous 
colleagues too tempting an opportunity for venting 
their spleen to be neglected. But what the girl, proud 
as she was of the success she had so early achieved 
in her profession, must have found even harder to bear 
than the spiteful remarks that were aimed at her — for 
her powers of repartee would enable her to give a good 
deal more than she took in a battle of tongues — was 
the fact that Hart, indignant at her leaving the theatre, 
or himself, or both, took the mean revenge of thrusting 
upon her those serious parts for which, as he very well 
knew, she was quite unsuited, and in which she so dis- 
gusted the critical Mr. Pepys. Fortunately, however, 
Hart, in the interests of the theatre, could not continue 
this for long, v and, after a few weeks, Nell resumed 
her comedy roles and speedily recovered her former 
popularity. 

Under date October 5, Pepys gives us another little 
miniature portrait of Nell and of life behind the scenes 
of the King's Theatre : 

" To the King's House and there going in met with 
Knipp and she took us into the tireing rooms ; and to 
the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself,* 
and was all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than 
I thought. And so walked all up and down the house 

* As Flora, in Flora's Vagaries, a comedy attributed to Rhodes. 



58 RIVAL SULTANAS 

and then below into the scene-room, and there sat down, 
and she gave us fruit ; and here I read the questions 
to Knipp, while she answered me through all the part 
of Flora's Figgarys (sic), which was acted to-day. But, 
Lord ! to see how they were both painted would make 
a man mad, and did make me loath them ; and 
what base company of men comes among them, and how 
loudly they talk ! and how poor the men are in clothes, 
and yet what a show they make on the stage by candle- 
light, is very observable. But to see how Nell cursed 
for having so few people in the pit was pretty ; the 
other house carrying away all the people, and is said 
now-a-days to have generally most company, as being 
the better players.'' 

The attraction at " The Duke's " which was drawing 
people away from the other house and causing Nell to 
use such forcible language was the singing and dancing 
of little Miss Davis in a piece called The Rivals, a new 
version by Davenant of The Two Noble Kinsmen, of 
Beaumont and Fletcher, or rather of Fletcher alone. 
It had been produced in 1664, but would not appear 
to have met with any great success until the author 
conceived the idea of giving the part of Celania, " a 
shepherdess mad for love," to Moll Davis, who danced 
a jig and sang a song, both of which found their way 
direct to the susceptible heart of the Merry Monarch, 
in which there was at that moment a vacant corner, 
caused by the departure of the beautiful and discreet 
Frances Stuart, who, to escape the royal importunities, 
had fled from the Court and married the Duke of Rich- 
mond. The jig, according to Cunningham, was probably 
some French importation, or nothing more than a rustic 




MISS DAVIS 
From an engraving after Harding. 



NELL GWYN AND LORD BUCKHURST 59 

measure with a few foreign innovations ; but the song, 
which has much ballad beauty to recommend it, has 
come down to us. 

My lodging is on the cold ground, 
And very hard is my fare, 
But that which troubles me most is 
The unkindness of my dear. 
Yet still I cry, O turn, love, 
And I prythee, love, turn to me, 
For thou art the man that I long for, 
And alack, what remedy ! 

I'll crown thee with a garland of straw, then, 
And I'll marry thee with a rush ring ; 
My frozen hopes shall thaw then, 
And merrily we will sing. 
O turn to me, my dear love, 
And I prythee, love, turn to me, 
For thou art the man that alone canst 
Procure my liberty. 

But if thou wilt harden thy heart still 
And be deaf to my pitiful moan, 
Then I must endure the smart still 
And tumble in straw alone. 
Yet still I cry, O turn, love, 
And I prythee, love, turn to me, 
For thou art the man that alone art 
The cause of my misery. 

The King was so much touched by the woes of the 
lovelorn Celania that he shortly afterwards persuaded 
her to exchange her lodging on the cold ground for a 
luxuriously-furnished house in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, 
and " married " her, not with a rush-ring, but with one 
which is said to have cost £joo, and which the little 
lady lost no opportunity of displaying to the eyes of her 
admiring and envious friends. 

Moll Davis is believed to have had good blood in her 



60 RIVAL SULTANAS 

veins, since Colonel Charles Howard, afterwards second 
Earl of Berkshire, is said to have been her father, though 
a blacksmith named Davis, of Charlton, in Wiltshire, 
near which stood the family-seat of the Howards, also 
claimed that distinction. Since the colonePs brothers, 
Robert and Edward, were both interested in the stage, 
the connection may possibly have facilitated her advance- 
ment in the royal favour. 

Good blood or no, this advancement appears to 
have caused great resentment in certain quarters of 
the Court. The Queen, not yet schooled to indifference 
to the vices of her volatile husband, was highly in- 
dignant, and when Miss Davis was dancing one of her 
favourite jigs in a play at Whitehall, her Majesty rose 
and " would not stay to see it." Lady Castlemaine, 
who had been overjoyed at the marriage of her involun- 
tary rival, Frances Stuart, was still more incensed and 
made no attempt to conceal it. Pepys relates how, one 
day at " The Duke's," Moll was seated in a box imme- 
diately over the royal box, in which were the King and 
Lady Castlemaine, and how when the King appeared to 
be far more interested in what was going on above 
than on the stage, her ladyship looked up to see who 
was there, and, " when she saw Moll Davis, she looked 
like fire, which troubled me." 

Since Charles had had the execrable taste to prefer an 
actress to herself, the exasperated sultana endeavoured 
to " get even " with him by extending her favour to 
an actor, to wit, Charles Hart, whom she visited quite 
openly at his own house. But his Majesty did not seem 
to mind very much. He was getting used to her 
ladyship's infidelities. 



CHAPTER IV 



^pOWARDS the end of December, Nell Gwyn 
-*• achieved another great success, as Mirida in 
James Howard's All Mistaken, or The Mad Couple, 
one of those broad-comedy parts which suited her 
so admirably. " To the King's House," writes Pepys, 
" and there saw the Mai Couple, which is but an ordi- 
nary play ; but only Nell and Hart's mad parts are most 
excellently done, but especially hers ; which makes it 
a miracle to me to think how ill she do any serious part, 
as the other day, just like a fool or a changeling ; and in 
a mad part do beyond all imitation almost."* 

The scene which appears to have aroused the most 
enthusiasm was one in which the song and the incident 
which had caused the removal of little Miss Davis from 
her lodging on the cold ground to the luxuriously- 
furnished one in Suffolk Street was very cleverly paro- 
died. Hart, as Pinquisier, an abnormally fat man, whose 
adipose tissue is a sore obstacle to his love-making, 
sobs his complaints into the ear of his inamorata, the 
madcap Mirida. 

Mirida — Dear love, come sit thee in my lap, 
and let me know if I can enclose thy world of love 
and fat within these arms. See, I cannot nigh 
compass my desire by a mile. 

• Pepys, December 28, 1667. 
6l 



62 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Pinquisier — How is my fat a rival to my joys ! 
Sure I shall weep it all away. [Weeps.] 

Mirida — 

Lie still, my babe, lie still and sleep, 
It grieves me sore to see thee weep. 
Wert thou but leaner, I were glad, 
Thy fatness makes thy dear love sad. 

What a lump of love have I in my arms ! 

My lodging is on the cold boards, 
And wonderful hard is my fare, 
But that which troubles me most is 
The fatness of my dear. 

Yet still I cry, Oh melt, love, 

And I prythee now melt apace, 

For thou art the man I should long for 

If 'twere not for thy grease. 

Pinquisier — 

Then prythee don't harden thy heart still, 

And be deaf to my pitiful moan, 

Since I do endure thy smart still, 

And for my fat do groan. 

Then prythee now turn, my dear love, 

And I prythee now turn to me, 

For alas ! I am too fat still 

To roll so far to thee. 

Then Pinquisier proceeds to roll towards Mirida, 
who rolls away to escape him every time he draws near 
her — a proceeding which appears to have provoked the 
greatest mirth amongst the audience. 

We do not know whether the parody appealed to 
Charles II. as much as the song, but, any way, he seems 
to have been of opinion that the charming Mirida was 
deserving of a less adipose admirer than poor Pinquisier, 
for at the beginning of the following year a report arose 
that " the King had sent for Nelly." But let us listen 
to the Clerk of the Acts : 



"THE KING SENDS FOR NELLY" 63 

" To the King's House, there to see The Wild-Goose 
Chase* Knepp came and sat by us, and the talk pleased 
me a little, she telling me that Miss Davis is for certain 
going away from the Duke's House, the King being in 
love with her, and a house is taken for her and furnish- 
ing ; and she hath a ring given her worth £600 ; that 
the King did send several times for Nelly, and she was 
with him, but what he did she knows not ; this was a 
good while ago ; f and she says that the King first 
spoiled Mrs. Weaver, which is very mean, methinks, in 
a prince, and I am sorry for it, and can hope for no good 
to the State, from having a prince so devoted to his 
pleasure."! 

• A play by Beaumont and Fletcher, first acted in 1632 and published in 1652. 

t According to Cunningham, Nell first attracted the King's attention in the 
part of Alizia, or Alice, Piers, the mistress of Edward III., in The Black Prince 
of the Earl of Orrery, produced at the King's House on October 19 in the pre- 
ceding year, in which she declaimed the following lines which " must have often 
in after life occurred to her recollection, not from their poetry, which is little 
enough, but from their particular applicability to her own story : 

You know, dear friend, when to this court I came, 
My eyes did all our bravest youth inflame ; 
And in that happy state I lived awhile, 
When Fortune did betray me with a smile ; 
Or rather Love against my peace did fight ; 
And to revenge his power, which I did slight, 
Made Edward our victorious monarch be 
One of those many who did sigh for me. 
All other flame but his I did deride ; 
They rather made my trouble than my pride : 
But this, when told me, made me quickly know, 
Love is a god to which all hearts must bow." 

This, if it were really the case, would be a most interesting coincidence, but 
unfortunately Mr. Wheatley, in one of his footnotes to the 1903 edition of the 
author's work, points out that it is by no means certain that it was Nell who 
acted the part of Alice Piers. For, though Downes, in his Roscius Anglicanus, 
says that the part was played by a " Mrs. Gwin," he probably refers to an Anne 
Quyn, another actress at the King's House, who is constantly confounded with 
" Mrs. Ellen Gwin," as he invariably describes Nell. 
X Pepys, January u, 1667-8. 



64 RIVAL SULTANAS 

The rumour that Nell had been summoned to the 
royal presence, was followed by a report that she was 
about to give his Majesty a pledge of her gratitude, 
but this was difficult to reconcile with her continued 
appearances upon the stage, in The Duke of Lerma, by 
Sir Robert Howard — a play, Pepys tells us, " designed to 
reproach the King with his mistresses " — in which she 
spoke the prologue " most excellently " — as Vabria in 
Dry den's Tyrannick Love, or The Royal Martyr, and as 
Donna Jacintha in the same dramatist's comedy of 
An Evenings Love, or The Mock Astrologer. At the same 
time, rumours were afloat to the effect that my Lord 
Buckhurst's departure on a complimentary mission to 
the French Court was nothing but a " sleeveless errand " 
designed to get him out of the way and leave the field 
clear for his royal rival, and that his appointment as 
groom of the King's Bedchamber, with a pension of a 
thousand pounds a year, was by way of being a solatium 
for the loss of his inamorata. Which appears rather 
hard upon his lordship, whose affection for Nell would 
not appear to have survived their July " jaunt " to 
Epsom, though we cannot agree with the late Mr. 
Dutton Cook, who, in an article in the Gentleman' 's 
Magazine (May, 1883), endeavours to prove that Buck- 
hurst was " not the man to sell his mistress." In an age 
when a King was prepared to sell his country, or, at any 
rate, its honour, his courtiers were not likely to stick 
at selling a mistress. 

Towards the end of 1668, or the beginning of the 
following year, Nell removed from Drury Lane to a 
house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the King appears 
to have visited her pretty frequently, though not openly ; 



"THE KING SENDS FOR NELLY" 65 

while the girl, on her side, was reported to have been 
summoned occasionally to Whitehall. The liaison was 
not, however, an established fact until the last week 
of 1669, when the time was drawing near for the pro- 
duction of a new tragedy by Dryden, The Conquest 
of Granada, in which Nell had been cast for the im- 
portant part of Almahide, a maiden whose beauty 
captivates the Moorish king. It was too dignified a 
part to promise her much of a success, but, by way of 
compensation, Dryden had written for her a witty 
prologue, which was confidently expected to take the 
town by storm. However, a few days before the 
day fixed for the production of the play, it was ascer- 
tained that the 'approach of an interesting domestic 
event would not allow of Mrs. Eleanor Gwyn under- 
taking the part, and, to the great disappointment of 
the public, the play had to be postponed. By a 
singular coincidence, the management of the Duke's 
Theatre, where a new piece was also announced for 
production, found themselves in a similar predicament, 
Miss Davis being incapacitated from appearing for the 
same reason as her rival in the affections of the King 
and the public. It is to be feared that such a contre- 
temps must have entailed a severe strain on the 
loyalty of both authors and actors. 

When The Conquest of Granada was at length pro- 
duced, which was not until the autumn of 1670, Dryden 
alluded to this double postponement in his epilogue : 

Think him not duller for the year's delay : 
He was prepared, the women were away ; 
And men without their parts can hardly play. 
If they through sickness seldom did appear, 



66 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Pity the virgins of each theatre ; 

For at both houses 'twas a sickly year ! 

And pity us, your servants, to whose cost 

In one such sickness nine whole months were lost. 

The play was a great success, or, at any rate, the 
prologue was, which was spoken by Nell Gwyn " in a 
broad-brimmed hat and waistbelt, the broad-brimmed 
hat being a jest at the expense of an incident in a play 
recently produced at the rival playhouse." " At the 
Duke's Theatre," writes Waldron, in his edition of the 
Roscius Anglicanus, published in 1789, " Nokes appeared 
in a hat larger than Pistol's, which took the town 
wonderful, and supported a bad play by its fine effect. 
Dryden, piqued at this, caused a hat to be made the 
circumference of a timber coach-wheel ; and, as Nelly 
was low of stature, and what the French call mignonne 
or piquante, he made her speak under the umbrella of 
that hat, the brims thereof being spread out horizon- 
tally to their full extension. The whole theatre was in 
a convulsion of applause, nay, the very actors giggled, 
a circumstance none had observed before. Judge, 
therefore, what a condition the merriest prince alive 
was in at such a conjuncture ! 'Twas beyond odso 
and ods-fish, for he wanted little of being suffocated 
at such a conjuncture ! " 

Downes says that Charles was so delighted with 
Nell's performance that, after the play was over, he 
carried her off in his own coach to sup with him at 
Whitehall. And certainly Nell was entitled to some 
extra attention on the part of her royal admirer, since 
on May 8 of that year she had presented him with a 
son, Charles Beauclerk, the future Duke of St. Albans. 



I 



CHAPTER V 



THE MERRY MONARCH 



1VTELL GWYN was nineteen years old when she 
^ had the distinction of being " sent for by the 
King " in the winter of 1668-9, and the King con- 
tinued to send for, or to visit, her for the remainder of 
his life. For, though it was only a corner of the royal 
heart that she was privileged to occupy, it was a very 
warm corner indeed. And there can be little doubt 
that Nell was genuinely attached to her royal " pro- 
tector." While Lady Castlemaine, under the King's 
very eyes, ranged from peers and officers in the Guards 
to actors and rope-dancers,* Nell, having attained the 
height of her ambition, remained, for all evidence to 
the contrary, perfectly faithful to her " Charles the 
Third." 

That " pretty, witty Nelly " should have attracted 
the monarch's vagrant fancy is not in the least surprising, 
but that she should have retained her hold over him 
to the end of his days is a fact which requires some 

* Jacob Hall, the tight-rope dancer, was among those upon whom Lady 
Castlemaine bestowed her favours. Her ladyship saw him performing at 
Bartholomew Fair, Smithfield, and fell, according to Pepys, " mightily in 
love with him " ; and in April, 1668 he was a regular visitor at her house. 
67 5* 



68 RIVAL SULTANAS 

explanation. She was not the first actress with whom 
Charles had had tender relations. There were Mrs. 
Weaver and Mrs. Knight and Moll Davis, but none of 
these affairs was of an enduring character, though little 
Miss Davis continued to be the object of fugitive 
attentions on his Majesty's part at any rate up to 1673, 
in which year she presented him with a daughter.* Nell, 
however, " the indiscreetest and wildest creature that 
ever was in a Court," f continued in high favour until 
the King's death, and " Let not poor Nelly starve ! " 
were Charles's last recorded words. What then is 
the explanation of this permanent attachment ? It is, 
we think, that just as Barbara Villiers appealed to 
the animal side of Charles's nature, and Louise de 
Keroualle to what was refined and intellectual in him, 
Nell appealed to his Bohemian side — to his dislike of 
ceremony and constraint, to his love of ease and good- 
fellowship. " It was," writes one of Charles's historians, 
" the frank recklessness of the Latin Quarter, the fear- 
lessness of her banter, her irrepressible gaiety, the 
spontaneousness of her practical jokes, her cama- 
raderie, and unfailing goodness of temper which made 
her hold on him secure. She was a true child of the 
London streets, apt of wit and shrewd of tongue ; 
and her very honesty of vice, her want of reticence, 
her buoyant indiscretions, her refusal to take herself 
seriously and regard herself as another but what she 

* This girl, Mary Tudor, was acknowledged by the King. She married, 
in 1687, Francis Radcliffe, second Earl of Derwentwater, whose son James, 
the third earl, was beheaded on Tower Hill in 171 6, for his share in the Jacobite 
rebellion of the previous year. 

f Burnet, " History of My Own Time." 



THE MERRY MONARCH 69 

was, have strangely enough secured for her a sort of 
positive affection in the respectable England of to-day, 
as they did during her joyous, irresponsible life."* 
If Nell, as so many women of similar origin would have 
done, had committed the mistake of endeavouring to 
play the lady, she would very speedily have bored 
Charles, who could, alas ! have had a whole seraglio 
of real ladies if he wanted them. But she preferred 
to remain herself — " anybody," as one of her rivals in 
the royal affections was once heard to remark, " might 
know she had been an orange-girl by her swearing " — 
and the contrast between his plebeian mistress and the 
high-bred ladies of his Court served to amuse the King 
for more than fifteen years. 

But let us see what manner of man was this King 
who could find so much attraction in the society of 
a daughter of the people, for hitherto we have only 
spoken of one side of a curiously multiple character. 

The popular conception of Charles II., that of a 
selfish, good-humoured voluptuary, " who never said a 
foolish thing, and never did a wise one," is very far 
removed from the truth ; and it is not a little strange 
that it should so long have survived, when we consider 
with what ability his character has been drawn for us 
by the many distinguished writers to whom he was 
personally known : by Clarendon and Halifax ; by 
Evelyn and Temple ; by Burnet, Dryden, and Roger 
North. 

It is, indeed, doubtful whether any King who ever 
sat on the English throne was endowed by Nature with 

• Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 



70 RIVAL SULTANAS 

a keener intellect than this " tall man, above two yards 
high " — to quote the description of him issued after 
the Battle of Worcester — with his fine dark eyes, 
his long, swarthy, saturnine countenance, which con- 
cealed " a merry and merciful disposition,"* his digni- 
fied carriage, and his " great voice." f 

Halifax praises his admirable memory and his acute 
powers of observation, and tells us that whenever one of 
his Ministers fell, the King was always at hand with a 
full inventory of his faults. His capacity for king- 
craft, knowledge of the world, and easy address enabled 
him to surmount difficulties which would have proved 
fatal to his father or brother. " It was a common saying 
that he could send away a person better pleased at 
receiving nothing than those in the good King his 
father's time that had requests granted them ; "J 
and his good-humoured tact and familiarity com- 
pensated in a great degree in the eyes of the nation 
for his many failings and preserved his popularity. 
He spoke French fluently, though he does not seem 
to have written it very idiomatically, and understood 
Italian. The classical side of his education would 
appear to have been somewhat neglected, as he is said 
not to have read Latin with ease. On the other hand, 
he was well grounded in critical and political litera- 
ture, as well as in English law and divinity. He had 
all the hereditary love of the Stuarts for poets and 
poetry. He carried Butler's Hudibras about in his 
pocket and protected its publication by royal warrant, 

# Savile. 

f Evelyn. 

% " Memoirs of Thomas, Earl of Aylesbury." 



THE MERRY MONARCH 71 

and suggested the Medal to Dryden as a subject for 
a poem while walking in the Mall. " If I were a poet," 
said he, " and I think I am poor enough to be one, I 
would write a poem on such a subject in the following 
manner." Dryden took the hint, carried his poem 
to the King, and received a hundred gold pieces for it. 
Like others of his race, like James I. and James V. of 
Scotland, like his father and grandfather, he was on 
occasion a poet himself. Here is a song of his com- 
position, which, as Cunningham observes, is certainly 
characteristic of his way of life : 

I pass all my hours in a shady old grove, 
But I live not the day when I see not my love ; 
I survey every walk now my Phillis is gone, 
And sigh when I think we were there all alone ; 
O then, 'tis O then, that I think there's no hell 
Like loving, like loving too well. 

But each shade and each conscious bow'r when I find, 
Where I once have been happy, and she has been kind ; 
When I see the print left of her shape on the green, 
And imagine the pleasure may yet come again ; 
O then 'tis I think that no joys are above 
The pleasures of love. 

While alone to myself I repeat all her charms, 
She I love may be locked in another man's arms, 
She may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be, 
To say all the kind things she before said to me ; 

then, 'tis O then, that I think there's no hell 

Like loving too well. 

But when I consider the truth of her heart ; 
Such an innocent passion, so kind without art ; 

1 fear I have wronged her, and hope she may be 
So full of true love to be jealous of me ; 

And then 'tis I think that no joys are above 
The pleasures of love. 



72 RIVAL SULTANAS 

In matters connected with the stage he showed even 
more discernment than in poetry, and the drama owed 
much to his encouragement. It was he who, as we 
have seen, suggested to Dryden the idea of his comedy 
of Secret Love, or The Maiden Queen, in which Nell 
Gwyn scored her first great success, nor was this the only 
play which owed its inspiration to the same source. 
For, not long before his death, he drew the attention 
of the poet Crowne to the Spanish play, No <puede 
ser ; or It cannot be, and suggested that he should 
write one on somewhat similar lines. The result was 
that excellent comedy Sir Courtly Nice. 

He was a buyer of pictures, and was greatly interested 
in architecture, in the history of which, even more 
than in that of portrait-painting, his reign forms a 
memorable epoch. He enjoyed working with his 
hands and mastering the techniques of manual trades. 
Of shipbuilding he possessed a really wonderful know- 
ledge, and the yacht which he had built for him in 
1663 was fitted with navigation contrivances of his own. 
The bent of his intellect, however, lay rather in the 
direction of physical science. He knew, Evelyn tells 
us, of many empirical medicines, and he spent many 
long days in his laboratory with Robert Moray, who 
had been President of the Royal Society and was 
regarded as the ablest Scotsman of his day.* His 
fondness for chemistry, which he shared with his 
cousin, Prince Rupert, he never lost, and in the very 

* " The King of England, who is so inconstant in most things," wrote the 
French Ambassador, Colbert de Croissy, " shows in one respect fixity of appli- 
cation. Come what may, he spends part of his time in a laboratory, making 
chemical experiments." 



THE MERRY MONARCH 73 

month of his death he was engaged in the production 
of mercury. 

There was no pretence or vanity in him, and in this 
may be found the key to his popularity, the explana- 
tion of why, worthless prince as he was in many ways, 
he lived beloved and died lamented by a very large 
portion of his people. " Is this like me ? " said he to 
the painter Riley, who had just completed a decidedly 
unflattering portrait of his royal patron. " Then, 
odd's fish ! [his favourite phrase], I am an ugly fellow ! " 
He had lived, when in exile, upon a footing of 
easy familiarity with his banished nobles, sharing the 
pleasures with which they had striven to soften the 
discomforts and humiliations of adversity, and had 
in this way grown accustomed to dispense with cere- 
mony, and to regard it as useless and ridiculous ; and, 
now that he had come into his own again, he refused 
to surround himself with the state which most of his 
predecessors had deemed indispensable to their dignity. 
It seems, indeed, to have been difficult for him to act, 
even for a moment, the part of a king, either in words 
or gesture. When he visited the House of Lords, he 
would descend from the throne and stand by the fire, 
drawing a crowd about him that broke up all the 
regularity and order of the place ; and he came to the 
council-table carrying with him one or more of those 
little dogs with which his name is associated. 

His very dog at council-board 
Sits grave and wise as any lord, 

wrote Rochester. 

The people liked to see their Sovereign strolling 



74 RIVAL SULTANAS 

in the early morning in St. James's Park, feeding his 
ducks and peacocks ; or playing tennis in the Mall ; 
or striding along on one of his long walks " with his 
wonted large pace,"* accompanied by only one or two 
attendants, or encouraging English dramatists and 
English actors and actresses by his presence at the 
theatres. They felt that here was a king who really 
mixed with his subjects, and they forgot the shame 
of his dissolute Court and the fact that he had dragged 
the honour of England in the dust. 

No prince was ever more sublimely indifferent to 
what was said or thought about him. Libels disturbed 
him not at all, and when Sheffield, in a satire un- 
surpassed for boldness even in an age of lampoons, 
compared him to Nero who fiddled while Rome was 
burning, he appears to have been rather amused than 
otherwise. From divines and others whose claims 
to administer it he admitted he was genially ready to 
accept censure. " I am going to hear little Ken tell 
me of my faults," he would observe with gay resigna- 
tion before going to hear that preacher, and he was 
probably sincere enough in his belief that " God would 
not damn a man for a little irregular pleasure." 

When compelled to listen to remonstrances upon his 
mode of life, he stipulated, however, that they should 
be administered in good taste. " Tell Dr. Frampton," 
said he, when the divine in question had preached 
a very outspoken sermon before him on the sin of 
adultery, " that I am not angry to be told of my faults, 
but I would have it done in a gentlemanly manner." 
It would seem, however, from an amusing letter of 

* Teonge's Diaiy. 



THE MERRY MONARCH 75 

Charles to his sister, that not a few of the discourses 
that were composed for his Majesty's benefit never 
reached the ears for which they were intended. " We 
have," he writes, " the same disease of sermons that 
you complain of there, but I hope you have the same 
convenience that the rest of the family has, of sleeping 
out most of the time, which is a great ease to those 
who are bound to listen to them." In later years, 
indeed, Charles appears to have been in the habit 
of composing himself for a nap when the preacher 
ascended the pulpit, an example which the courtiers 
were not slow to follow. On one occasion, when South 
happened to be occupying the pulpit, he perceived 
Charles wrapped in peaceful slumber, while near 
him sat the Earl of Lauderdale snoring loudly. 
Pausing in his sermon, the preacher turned towards 
the earl. " My lord, my lord," he exclaimed, " you 
snore so loud you will wake the King ! " 

That Charles should have been the despair of the 
Anglican divines is scarcely a matter for surprise, since 
he was firmly convinced of the truth of the Roman 
Catholic religion and died in that communion, though 
he never found it possible to profess his faith during 
his lifetime. Moreover, the animosities between the 
Established Church and the Nonconformists with which 
his reign began had made him think indifferently 
of both, and he looked upon the clergy, Clarendon 
tells us, as a body of men who had compounded a 
religion for their own advantage. 

The serenity of his temper was seldom ruffled, 
and, even when this happened, the storm was of short 
duration. Affairs of State were seldom capable of 



76 RIVAL SULTANAS 

causing him more than a mere passing irritation, and 
it was for offences of a purely personal nature, such as 
the efforts to thwart his determination to make Lady 
Castlemaine a lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, that 
his anger was reserved. The most striking instance of 
a loss of self-control that is recorded of him occurred 
when Henry Savile, one of his gentlemen, voted for 
the Address against Lauderdale in 1678. " The King 
was mightily displeased against him, and to so high 
a degree, that when he was late that night going to 
bed, and Savile coming in after his ordinary way, the 
King, upon the first sight of him, fell into such a passion 
that his face and lips became as pale (almost) as death, 
his cheeks and arms trembled, and then he said to 
Savile : ' You villayne, how dare you have the im- 
pudence to come into my presence when you are guilty 
of such baseness as you have shown this day ? I doe 
now from henceforth discharge you from my service, 
commanding you never to come any more into my 
presence, nor to any place where I shall happen to 
be.' " Savile bowed and withdrew, but a few days 
later reappeared and resumed his duties, his Majesty, 
in the interval, having apparently forgotten all about 
the offence of which he had been guilty. 

He was a remarkably shrewd judge of men, and if 
some of his Ministers were quite unworthy of the 
high position they occupied, he chose them because 
they happened to serve his purpose of the moment, 
not because he was in the least deceived as to their 
qualifications. " If writers be just to the memory of 
King Charles II.," writes Dryden, a few years after 
Charles's death, in dedicating his " King Arthur " 




From a photograph by Ei 



CHARLES THE SECOND 
ry Walker, after the picture by Ma 

Portrait Gallery. 



THE MERRY MONARCH 77 

to Halifax, " they cannot deny him to have been 
an exact knower of mankind, and a perfect distinguisher 
of their talents. It is true that his necessities often 
forced him to vary his counsellors and counsels, and 
sometimes to employ such persons in the management of 
his affairs who were rather fit for his present purpose 
than satisfactory to his judgment ; but when it was 
choice in him, not compulsion, he was master of too 
much good sense to delight in heavy conversation ; 
and, whatever his favourites of State might be, yet 
those of his affection were men of wit." 

In his exile, Charles had acquired a personal know- 
ledge of many of the Sovereigns and statesmen of 
Europe, or he had gathered much valuable informa- 
tion concerning them from those who knew them 
intimately; and Lord Keeper Guildford declares that 
he understood foreign affairs better than any of his 
Ministers. Unhappily, the only use he made of this 
knowledge was to fill his own pockets at the expense 
of his country's honour. 

He was a great talker and an admirable raconteur, 
and nothing pleased him better than to discourse 
upon the incidents of his eventful life, and more 
particularly of his adventures after the battle of 
Worcester. Some of his courtiers found fault with 
this habit, and would seek pretexts to withdraw when 
his Majesty started upon his favourite topic ; but 
others would listen with pleasure, and even affect an 
ignorance of what they had heard him relate ten times 
before, " treating a story of his telling as a good 
comedy that bears being often seen, if well acted." 
This love of talking made him fond of strangers, 



78 RIVAL SULTANAS 

whom his pleasant, unaffected manner placed at once 
at their ease, and who went away enraptured by his 
condescension. 

His wit, the chief source of which was a quite 
extraordinary quickness of apprehension, is, of course, 
proverbial, though many of his witticisms were 
seasoned with so gross a salt that they will hardly 
bear reproduction. Happily, however, the majority of 
those that have come down to us are quite free 
from this objection, and, notwithstanding that some of 
them are doubtless well known, a selection may not be 
unwelcome. 

One of the wittiest of his remarks was his reply to 
the epitaph which Rochester had written upon him 
at his own request : 

" Here lies our sovereign lord the King, 
Whose word no man relies on ; 
Who never said a foolish thing, 
And never did a wise one." 

To which Charles retorted : " The matter is easily 
accounted for ; my discourse is my own ; while my 
actions are my Ministers'. " 

No one could convey a rebuke in a more graceful 
manner. When Penn, the Quaker, stood before him 
with his hat on, the King immediately removed his. 
" Friend Charles," said Penn, " why dost thou not keep 
on thy hat ? " " 'Tis the custom of this place," replied 
the monarch, " that only one person should be covered 
at a time." 

Once, when leaving a Guildhall dinner, the Lord 
Mayor, Sir Robert Viner, whose sense of the deference 
he owed his illustrious guest had been temporarily 



THE MERRY MONARCH 79 

obscured by the amount of wine he had consumed, 
pursued him, and, " catching him fast by the hand, 
cried out with a vehement oath and accent : ' Sire, 
you shall stay and take t'other bottle.' " The monarch, 
instead of resenting such familiarity, contented himself 
by smilingly repeating a line of the old song : 

He that's drunk is as great as a king, 

and immediately turned back and complied with his 
host's request. 

Two of his best sallies were uttered at the expense 
of his brother, James, Duke of York. In allusion to 
the plain looks of that prince's mistresses, he observed 
that " he believed that he had his favourites given him 
by the priests by way of penance." 

One morning — it was soon after the Rye House 
Plot — the King, accompanied only by two noblemen, 
was walking up Constitution Hill in the direction of 
Hyde Park, when he encountered the Duke of York, 
who had been hunting on Hounslow Heath, returning 
in his coach, escorted by a squadron of Life Guards. 
At sight of the King, the coach stopped, and the Duke, 
alighting, saluted his Majesty, at the same time ex- 
pressing his surprise at finding him in such a place with 
so small an attendance, which, he feared, must expose 
him to some danger. " No kind of danger, brother," 
was the laughing reply ; " for I am sure no man in 
England will take away my life to make you King." 

Of Harrow Church, standing on a hill and visible 
for many miles round, he is reported to have said that 
" it was the only visible Church that he knew ; " and 
when taken to see a man clamber up the outside of a 



80 RIVAL SULTANAS 

church to its very pinnacle, and there stand on his head, 
he offered him, on coming down, a patent to prevent 
any one doing it but himself. 

He could jest at his own expense as well as at that 
of others. On one occasion, he inquired of Stillingfleet 
how it was that he invariably read his sermons before 
him, when he was informed that he always preached 
" without book " elsewhere. Stillingfleet answered some- 
thing about the awe of so noble a congregation and the 
presence of so great and wise a prince ; and then asked 
the King's permission to ask him a question. This 
being granted, he said : " Why does your Majesty 
read your speeches, when you can have none of the 
same reasons ? " " Why, truly, doctor," replied the 
King, " your question is a very pertinent one and so 
will be my answer. I have asked the two Houses so 
often and for so much money, that I am ashamed to 
look them in the face." 

An amusing story is related which shows that the 
monarch who scrupled not to become the pensioner of 
a foreign Power had a sense of honour as well as a 
sense of humour. On one of the King's birthdays a 
particularly impudent member of the light-fingered 
fraternity had contrived to slip into the palace, and was 
detected by Charles in the act of extracting a gold 
snuff-box from the pocket of a certain unsuspecting 
nobleman. The thief, not one whit abashed at being 
perceived by his Sovereign, put his finger to his nose, 
and favoured the King with a knowing wink. Charles 
took the hint, and watched with keen enjoyment 
while the noble owner of the snuff-box began searching 
first in one pocket and then in another in quest of 



THE MERRY MONARCH 81 

his missing property. At length, beckoning him to 
approach, he said : " You need not give yourself any 
more trouble about it, my lord ; your box is gone ; I 
am myself an accomplice. But I could not help it : 
I was made a confidant." 

Charles's magnificent constitution and his active 
habits enabled him to defy the effects of a debauchery 
which would have brought most men to an early grave, 
or to premature decrepitude, until he was almost on the 
threshold of old age. Until within a few days before 
his death he rose at six o'clock in the morning — in the 
height of summer at an even earlier hour — and, no 
matter how dissipated his nights may have been, he 
always seemed as fresh as a lark. He was particularly 
fond of tennis, a game at which he greatly excelled ; 
and it was seldom that he passed a day without " taking his 
usual physicke at tennis,"* as he called it, visiting the 
court as early as it was light enough to see clearly. 
The tennis-court was not infrequently the place chosen 
by him for granting audiences on the most important 
matters, and we read that when in 1678 the lords of 
the Hamilton party came to press their cause against 
Lauderdale, they kissed the King's hands in the lobby 
of the court. His first serious illness, which occurred 
in the following year, was due to his imprudence in 
sauntering along the waterside in St. James's Park after 
taking part in an unusually hard game. 

He was devoted to all kinds of field-sports, especially 
hunting ; and a chief attraction of England for him 
was the fact that there was no country in which they 
could be indulged in so freely. When not hunting, 

* Clarendon. 

6 



82 RIVAL SULTANAS 

he generally walked three or four hours a day by his 
watch, " which he commonly did so fast, that, as it was 
really an exercise to himself, so it was a trouble to all 
about him to keep up with him."* 

Whether on foot or on horseback he was equally 
indefatigable. He would ride many miles to dine with 
some favourite member of his Court, returning the 
same evening. On one occasion, he covered sixty 
miles, rising at dawn and returning at midnight. On 
another, he did not go to bed until nearly midnight, 
and yet was in the saddle at three o'clock the following 
morning, and rode to Audley End, in Suffolk, where 
he was staying for the Newmarket races. 

Not only was he a most accomplished horseman, 
but he was an excellent judge of horses, and possessed 
a knowledge of the animal which would have done 
credit to a veterinary surgeon. For this he was largely 
indebted to his old Governor, William Cavendish, 
Earl of Newcastle, himself a noted horseman and 
breeder, who relates with pride that " he had the 
honour to be the first to sate the King on horseback," 
and declares that " his Majesty made my horses go 
better than any Italian or French riders (who had often 
rid them) would do." It is scarcely surprising, there- 
fore, that at the Restoration, when, in the words of a 
drinking-song of the time : 

" A hound and hawk no longer 
Shall be tokens of disaffection. 
A cock-fight shall cease 
To be a breach of the peace, 
And a horse-race an insurrection," 

* Burnet. 



THE MERRY MONARCH 83 

horse-racing and breeding should, as Newcastle had 
advised, have been sedulously patronized, and that 
the prosperity of Newmarket, which under Puritan 
rule had fallen on very evil days, should have under- 
gone an amazing revival. 

Racing, in a formal sense, with its Spring and Autumn 
meetings, began in 1665, though the King's first per- 
sonal visit was not paid until the following year. From 
that time he appears to have rarely missed a meeting, 
sometimes being at Newmarket thrice in the year. 
On these visits he was usually accompanied by the 
Court, and the little town became for the time a 
very gay place indeed. Business was never allowed 
to intrude upon these holidays ; all formality and 
ceremony were dispensed with, and Charles and his 
courtiers talked of nothing but racing, hunting, cours- 
ing, and cock-fighting. The Ambassadors followed the 
Court, but their requests for audiences were seldom 
acceded to ; indeed, it is to be feared that there were 
times when his Majesty was hardly in a fit condi- 
tion to receive them, so completely did he " put off 
the king." On Sundays the neighbouring University 
of Cambridge sent its most celebrated preachers to 
discourse before the King ; but his Majesty appears 
to have found them somewhat long-winded, since, 
in 1673, he commanded them to deliver their ser- 
mons in the future from memory ; which, in some 
cases, must have served seriously to curtail their 
eloquence. 

Evelyn, who visited Newmarket on two occasions 
in 1670, has some interesting references to the place 
in his diary : 

6* 



84 RIVAL SULTANAS 

" 22 July [1670]. We went to see the stables and fine 
horses, of which many were kept at vast expense, with 
all the art and tenderness imaginable. . . . We returned 
over Newmarket Heath, the way being mostly sweet 
turf and down, like Salisbury Plain, the jockeys 
breathing their fine barbs and racers and giving them 
their heats. 

" 9 and 10 October [1670]. Next day, after dinner, 
I was on the heath, where I saw the great race run 
between Woodcock and Flatfoot, belonging to the King 
and Mr. Elliot of the Bedchamber, many thousands 
being spectators ; a more signal race had not been run 
for years." 

Mr. J. P. Hore, in his " History of Newmarket," 
cites a letter from Sir Nicholas Armorer, who had put 
two guineas on Thumps, a horse belonging to Lord 
Thomond, for the " Great Race " of 1668, on behalf 
of the owner, which gives us a glimpse of life at New- 
market while the King was there : 

" Thy Armorer brings for you and himself two 
guineas, which were improved on Thumps' victory ; 
won but a yard and soe straight the entire six miles. 
The King is highly pleased with all his Newmarket 
recreations ; by candle-light yesterday morning and 
this morning, hunting the hair ; this afternoon he 
hawks and courses with greyhounds ; to Norwich 
to-morrow ; on Monday here again. The Cup ridd 
for next week before the Queene. As thou prizes 
earthly Paradise, bringe a mayde of honour behind 
thee next week." 

The betting was often very heavy at Newmarket 



THE MERRY MONARCH 85 

even in those far-off days ; matches for a thousand 
guineas a side were not uncommon ; and we hear 
of a gentleman named Frampton, who, though his 
estate was not supposed to be worth more than £120 
a year, wagered the sum of £900 on the result of a 
single race. Charles himself does not appear to have 
betted to any great extent, nor did he run horses of 
his own until the autumn meeting of 1671 ; but he 
then, or at any rate in the following year, put his 
horsemanship to practical use by becoming a gentle- 
man-jockey. It is probable that the King rode his 
horse Woodcock against Tom Elliot's Flatfoot in the 
match spoken of by Evelyn, for though the diarist 
does not mention the fact, the old Newmarket Calen- 
dar states that this race was run " with owners up." 
But it is certain that he was riding at the autumn 
meeting of 1672, since we read in the Journal of 
Thomas Isham, of Pytchley, Northampton, under date 
October 30 of that year : 

" Mr. Bullivant, Parson of Mantwell, came and 
said the King had ridden two heats at Newmarket 
{Ac dicit Regent apud novum Mercatum bis stadium 
currisse), and the Duke of Albemarle's horse had fallen 
and broken his neck."* 

On March 24, 1675, a despatch from Sir Robert 
Carr to his colleagues at Whitehall exhibits the Merry 
Monarch riding his own horses and carrying all before 
him : 

" Yesterday his Majestie Rode him three heats and 
a course and won the Plate, all fower were hard and 

* " Journal of Thomas Isham, translated by the Rev. R. Isham, Rector of 
Lamport," cited by Mr. Hore. 



86 RIVAL SULTANAS 

nere run, and I doe assure you the King won by guid 
Horseman ship. Last night a match was maid between 
Blew Capp [the King's horse] and a consealed horse 
of Mr. Mayes' called Thumper, to run the six mile 
course twelve stone wait upon Tuesday in Easter 



* Mr. J. P. Hore, " History of Newmarket." The author mentions that 
the expenses of the King's journey from Whitehall to Newmarket and back 
amounted to the sum of £&6o 9s. iofi. 



CHAPTER VI 



NELL LEAVES THE STAGE 



l^TELL GWYN'S appearance as Almahide, in The 
Conquest of Granada, marks the termination of 
her career as an actress.* For the King had decided 
to take the mother of his child away from the stage 
and to acknowledge the relations which existed be- 
tween them. Towards the end of the year 1670, Nell 
had removed from Lincoln's Inn Fields to a house on 
the north side of Pall Mall, which Pennant describes 
as " the first good house on the left of the square as 
one entered from Pall Mall." It was pulled down in 
1848, when the Army and Navy Club was built. She 

* Genist supposed that Nell returned to the stage in 1677, in which year 
he gives her credit for having acted Angelica Bianca, in Mrs. Behn's Rover, 
Astraea, in The Constant Nymph, and Thalestris, in Pordage's Siege of Baby- 
lon. In the following year he gives her Lady Squeamish, in Otway's Friendship 
in Fashion, and Lady Knowall, in Mrs. Behn's Sir Patient Fancy ; while in 
1682 he attributes to her the parts of Sunamire, in Southern's Loyal Brother, 
and Queen Elizabeth in Banks's Unhappy Favourite. " This," observes Mr. 
Wheatley, " must surely be a mistake, caused by some confusion with the other 
actress who bore the name of Gwyn. It is impossible to imagine the volatile 
Nell Gwyn creating the character of Queen Elizabeth. If there were no other 
reason for doubting this supposition of a return to the stage, it would be found 
in the fact that in 1675 Nell was appointed a Lady of the Privy Chamber to 
the Queen." 

87 



88 RIVAL SULTANAS 

did not, however, occupy this house for more than 
a few months, since the following year found her on 
the opposite side of the street. This house, or rather 
the site of it, is now the office of the Eagle Insurance 
Company. Her neighbour, on one side, was Edward 
Griffin, Treasurer of the Chamber, and ancestor of 
the present Lord Braybrooke; and, on the other, the 
widow of Charles Weston, third Earl of Portland. 
Nell at first had only a lease of this house, but, as soon 
as she discovered this, she returned the lease to the 
King with an unprintable epigram, which so amused 
his Majesty that he forthwith bestowed the freehold 
upon her. The truth of this story seems to be con- 
firmed by the fact that the house which occupies the 
site of the one in which Nelly lived is the only free- 
hold on the south or Park side of Pall Mall. 

The gardens of those houses on the south side of 
Pall Mall ran down to the garden of St. James's Palace, 
and we must bear in mind that in the well-known 
scene described by Evelyn, and which is the subject 
of a picture by the painter Ward, the King was walk- 
ing in his own garden, and not, as is usually supposed, 
in the public park. 

" 2 March, 1 67 1. — I walked with the King through 
St. James's Park to the garden, where I both saw and 
heard a very familiar discourse between the King and 
Mrs. Nelly, as they call an impudent comedian, she 
looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of 
the wall, and the King standing on the green walk 
under it. I was heartily sorry at the scene." 

Nell Gwyn's name is associated with quite a number 
of other houses, but, it would appear, without, as a 




NELL GWYN 
From a mezzotint c-n^rnvim; by P. V. B., alter a picture by Sir Peter Lely, 



NELL LEAVES THE STAGE 89 

rule, much foundation. Among these may be men- 
tioned No. 53, Wardour Street, which before the 
name Princes Street was abolished and the whole length 
from Oxford Street to Coventry Street was called 
Wardour Street, was known as No. 38, Princes Street. 
From a deed dated April, 1677, it would seem that 
Nell was at one time owner or part-owner of this 
house, but there is no evidence that she ever lived 
there. 

Tradition also affirms that she resided at one time 
at Bagnigge House, adjoining Bagnigge Wells, so 
popular a resort in the eighteenth century, and the 
Assembly Rooms of which once contained a bust 
which is supposed to have been that of Nell, but it 
is not corroborated by any evidence. The same may 
be said of her supposed association with Sandford 
House at Sandy End, Chelsea ; Lauderdale House, 
Highgate, now included in Waterloo Park ; a house 
at Mill Hill, near Littleberries ; a house at Leyton, 
opposite the vicarage ; and an old mansion, now pulled 
down, at Sunninghill, in Berkshire, where there is 
an avenue of limes called Nell Gwyn's Avenue. 

There is, however, one residence respecting her 
connexion with which there can be no doubt. This 
is Burford House, Windsor, the site of which is now 
occupied by the Queen's Mews. Burford House was 
originally granted by Charles II. to Nell for life, and 
after her death in trust for her elder son, Charles, Earl 
of Burford (afterwards Duke of St. Albans), and the 
heirs male of his body ; but this, as the following 
memorandum shows, was subsequently altered to 
include heirs female : 



9 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

" Charles II. to Charles, Earl of Dorset and Middle- 
sex, Sir George Hewitt, Bart., and Sir Edward Villiers, 
Kt., and W. Chiffinch, Esq. — After reciting that by 
Deeds of 13th and 14th of Sept., 32 Car. II., Chiffinch 
conveyed to them (Dorset, Hewitt and Villiers) Bur- 
ford House with the gardens, etc., at New Windsor, 
Berks., for life, remainder to the Earl of Burford, our 
natural son, in tail male, remainder to the King in 
fee ; the King orders the declaration of new trusts 
to let in the heirs female of the Earl of Burford, with 
ultimate remainder to Ellen Gwyn in fee."* 

Prince George of Denmark and the Princess Anne 
resided at Burford House in 1689 and 1690. 

The " elevation " of Nell Gwyn, following so closely 
on that of another star of the theatrical firmament, 
aroused a good deal of unfavourable comment, for 
even people who were far from being straitlaced 
condemned the present state of morality at Court and 
the nature and number of the King's amours. In the 
House of Commons, the Country party, as the Opposi- 
tion began to be called about this time, failing in their 
efforts to defeat the money-bills which were continually 
being presented to that assembly, endeavoured to throw 
the burden upon new sources of revenue, which they 
hoped would prove insufficient. With this object, in 
October, 1670, they proposed a tax upon the play- 
houses, which, as Bishop Burnet very truly observes, 
had become " nests of prostitution." This was op- 
posed by the Court party, upon whose behalf Sir 
John Birkenhead advanced the argument that " the 

* Historical MSS. Comm., 4th Report, Part I., cited by Mr. H. B. Wheatley, 
Introduction to Cunningham's " Nell Gwyn " (edit. 1903.) 



NELL LEAVES THE STAGE 91 

players were the King's servants and a part of his 
pleasure." Sir John Coventry,* member for Wey- 
mouth, who followed, did not fail to take advantage 
of the opening thus afforded him, and inquired, with 
much gravity, " whether did the King's pleasure lie 
among the men or the women that acted ? " This 
impertinent allusion to the Sovereign's amours was 
reported to his Majesty, and " it was said that this 
was the first time that the King was personally reflected 
on : if it was passed over, more of the same kind would 
follow, and it would grow a fashion to talk so." Charles 
was therefore urged " to take such severe notice of the 
offence that for the future no one would dare to talk 
so." 

" The Duke of York told me," writes Burnet, " that 
he did all he could to divert him from the resolution 
he took ; which was to send some of his guards and 
watch in the street where Sir John had his lodging f 
and leave a mark upon him. Sands and O'BrianJ 
and some others went ; and, as Coventry was going 
home, they drew about him : he stood up to the wall, 
snatched the flambeau out of his servant's hand, and, 
with that in one hand and his sword in the other, 

* He was the son of John Coventry, second son of Lord Keeper Thomas 
Coventry. In 1640 he was elected to the Long Parliament as member for 
Evesham, but in 1645 was disabled from sitting in the House of Commons, 
on account of his strong Royalist opinions. He served in the Royalist Army, 
and his attachment to the Crown was so well known that at the coronation 
of Charles II. he was created a Knight of the Bath. In January, 1667, he was 
elected M.P. for Weymouth, and, although his uncles, Henry and William 
Coventry, were both in office, at once went into opposition. 

j" Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, the same street in which Moll Davis was now 
living. 

J He was a son of Lord Inchequin and a very " roystering blade " indeed. 



92 RIVAL SULTANAS 

he defended himself so well that he got more credit 
by it than by all the actions of his life. He wounded 
some of them, but was soon disarmed, and then they 
cut his nose to the bone, to teach him to remember 
what respect he owed to the King ; and so they left 
him and went back to the Duke of Monmouth, where 
O'Brian's arm was dressed. That matter was executed 
by orders from the Duke of Monmouth, for which he 
was severely censured, because he lived then in pro- 
fessions of friendship with Coventry, so that his sub- 
jection to the King was not thought an excuse for 
directing so vile an attempt on his friend without 
sending him secret notice of what was designed. 
Coventry had his nose so well needled up that the 
scar was scarcely to be discerned."* 

This outrage upon the person of one of its members 
roused the Commons to fury, and they proceeded to 
pass sentence of banishment upon the perpetrators, 
in which they inserted a clause to the effect that it 
should not be in the King's power to pardon them. 

• By a singular coincidence, the punishment inflicted on Sir John Coventry 
was what, some eighteen months before, Sir John's uncle, the celebrated Sir 
William Coventry, had threatened to inflict upon the actor of the King's House 
who should dare to caricature him upon the stage. Sir William's frankness 
and independence had procured for him many enemies, and in March, 1668, 
he was informed that the Duke of Buckingham and Robert Howard intended 
to have him caricatured in The Rehearsal, which was shortly to be produced 
at the King's House. Upon which he bade Killigrew " to tell his actors, who- 
ever they were, that he would not complain to my Lord Chamberlain, which 
was too weak, nor get him beaten, as Sir Charles Sedley had done [Sedley had 
recently administered a severe thrashing to the actor Kynaston, who had 
mimicked him upon the stage], but that he would cause his nose to be cut." 
Not satisfied with this, he challenged the Duke of Buckingham to a duel, and 
was committed to the Tower by the King, for sending a challenge to a person 
of the duke's distinction. 



NELL LEAVES THE STAGE 93 

After which they framed an act, which was known as 
the Coventry Act, making it felony, without benefit 
of clergy, to maim or disfigure any one in the manner 
there mentioned. 

But we must now turn for a moment to matters of 
foreign policy, which were to lead to the introduction 
into Charles's seraglio of a new sultana. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 



"pOR some time past the greater part of the English 
nation had been alive to the fact that the real 
enemy to the peace of Europe was Louis XIV. In 
the summer of 1667, that monarch had invaded 
the Spanish Netherlands, and marched triumphantly 
through the country, taking city after city. It was 
plain that nothing could prevent the complete conquest 
of the Low Countries but a close alliance between 
England and Holland, and on January 23, 1668, the 
Dutch Minister, De Witt, and the English Ambassador 
at The Hague, Sir William Temple, concluded the 
Triple Alliance between England, Holland and Sweden, 
by which these countries bound themselves to check 
the advance of France. Louis, not daring to face 
such a coalition, stayed his advance in the Low 
Countries, but, despite the severity of the winter, 
poured his forces, under the Great Conde, into the 
Franche-Comte, and subdued that province in a fort- 
night. He then consented to negotiate, and on May 2 
the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, by which, 
in return for the French evacuation of the Franche- 
Comte, Spain surrendered to Louis several important 
94 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 95 

frontier-towns, including Lille, Tournai and Courtrai. 
Thus, he retired with very considerable advantage ; 
nevertheless, his mortification at being prevented from 
securing all that he coveted was very keen, and he never 
forgave the Dutch for their interference. 

By this treaty, which was very popular in England, 
the country assumed for the moment its rightful 
position in Europe, and entered upon the policy which 
the situation of affairs upon the Continent rendered 
necessary for the next hundred years. But, on the part 
of Charles II., this sudden assumption of a national 
policy was merely a concession to popular feeling, for, 
even while his Ministers were treating with Holland, 
the King was himself engaged in secret negotiations 
with Louis XIV. 

The motives which induced Charles to enter into 
those schemes so antagonistic to the national interests 
which have disgraced his reign were two. In the 
first place, he desired to be independent of Parliament 
and of his people. It must not be supposed that 
Charles had any desire to be an absolute monarch in 
the sense that Louis XIV. was. His idea of absolu- 
tism probably did not go much beyond freedom from 
all restraint and liberty to do as he pleased. But the 
increasing interference of the Commons in his ex- 
penditure and the impertinence, as he considered it, 
of their inquiries into the use of the money granted 
him had aroused his anger. He could not bear, he said, 
that a set of fellows should look into his expenditure, 
and he was determined to dispense with the necessity 
of summoning Parliament, if this could be contrived. 
His second motive was the desire to establish the Roman 



96 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Catholic religion, for, as we have seen, Charles was 
firmly convinced that Roman Catholicism was the best 
form of Christianity. So far back as 1662 he had sent 
Sir Richard Bellings to Rome to arrange the terms of 
England's conversion, and in 1668 he entered into 
correspondence with Oliva, the General of the Jesuits, 
through his natural son, James de la Cloche.* In the 
same year the conversion of the Duke of York became 
known to him, and on January 25, 1669, a secret con- 
ference between the two royal brothers, with Arling- 
ton, Clifford and Arundel of Wardour, took place in 
the duke's bedchamber, at which it was decided to 
communicate the intended conversion of the realm 
to Louis XIV. and to invite his co-operation. 

For without external help it would, of course, be 
impossible for Charles to realize either of his objects, 
and the ally who would be most willing to support 
him was naturally Louis, who also had two great objects 
in view, for which he would be prepared to pay high : 
the destruction of Holland, where the Republican 
form of government was regarded by the French 
monarch as a standing insult to despotism, and the 
acquisition of some share, if not of the whole, of the 
Spanish dominions, which might at any moment fall 
vacant by the death of the weakling Charles of Spain, 
and to which Louis, notwithstanding his wife's re- 
nunciation, fully intended to lay claim. 

In 1661, under Clarendon's rule, the evil precedent 
had been admitted of receiving money from France, 
and in 1662 Dunkerque had been sold to Louis XIV. 
In February, 1667, during the Dutch war, a secret 

* See page 5 supra. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 97 

alliance had been made between the two sovereigns, 
Charles promising Louis a free hand in the Nether- 
lands, and Louis undertaking to support Charles's 
designs " in or out of the kingdom." It was the refusal 
of France to accede to all his demands, which Louis 
considered far too exorbitant, which had induced 
Charles to close with the Dutch proposals and sanction 
the Triple Alliance ; but, so far as he himself was 
concerned, the league with the States-General was 
merely a temporary expedient, and he was, besides, 
well aware that the mercantile jealousy of his subjects 
against the Dutch still continued, and would soon 
cause the enthusiasm with which it had been received 
to evaporate. Louis, on his side, was careful to keep 
the door open for fresh negotiations, and, by way of 
calming English susceptibilities, Colbert de Croissy 
was sent to England (July, 1668) to conclude a 
commercial treaty advantageous to this country. 

But, though things seemed to promise well for the 
success of his schemes, the French King had gauged 
the character of Charles too accurately to have over- 
much faith in his promises, and he was most anxious 
to find an agent who might be able to gain sufficient 
influence over his unstable mind to keep him faithful 
to the interests of France. For a moment he had 
thought of Lady Castlemaine, but Colbert de Croissy 
had assured him that no reliance was to be placed in 
that lady, so completely was she dominated by the 
passion of the moment ; and he was obliged to look 
elsewhere. 

After a long search, he thought he had found the 
man he required. There happened to be in Paris 

7 



98 RIVAL SULTANAS 

at this time an Italian monk named Pregnani, who 
had dazzled the imagination of the Electress of 
Bavaria by his knowledge of alchemy and astrology. 
After taking him from his convent, she recommended 
him to the King of France, and begged him to give 
him an abbey. " He understands," wrote the 
princess, " how to blow a bellows and use crucibles, 
according to the rules of alchemy, has infinite clever- 
ness and marvellous suppleness and dexterity in 
attaining his ends." 

Now, in one of his Ambassador's gossiping des- 
patches, Louis had noted the passage which we have 
already cited elsewhere :* " The King of England, 
who is so inconstant in most things, shows in one 
respect fixity of application. Come what may, he 
spends daily a part of his time in a laboratory making 
chemical experiments." Since to attempt to govern 
Charles through Lady Castlemaine appeared to be 
hopeless, Louis decided to try and govern him through 
his laboratory, and to send Pregnani, who had been 
duly provided with an abbey, to England. 

But to introduce Pregnani into the Court circle 
without exciting suspicion was a matter which pre- 
sented some little difficulty, and Colbert de Croissy, 
whom Louis consulted, was at first somewhat puzzled 
how to proceed. Eventually, however, he decided 
to make use of the Duke of Monmouth, who was 
credulous and superstitious and to whom his royal 
sire was greatly attached. At a supper-party at the 
French Embassy at which Monmouth was present, 
Colbert de Croissy adroitly turned the conversation 

* See page 72 note supra. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 99 

to the subject of the occult sciences, and told such 
tall tales of the wonderful transmutations which 
Pregnani could effect and the horoscopes he cast that 
the curiosity of the duke, who appears to have been 
very anxious to learn whether the heavenly bodies 
favoured his pretensions to the Crown of England, 
was excited. Monmouth invited Pregnani to London, 
where he went at night to receive the Ambassa- 
dor's instructions, for Louis XIV., more than half 
ashamed of being represented by a charlatan, wished 
the mission to remain a secret. From London the 
abbe followed the Court to Newmarket for the Spring 
Meeting of 1669 ; and there Monmouth, in order to 
put his powers to the test, informed him that he was 
in love with a certain young lady, to whom his father, 
the King, and his uncle, the Duke of York, were like- 
wise making advances, and demanded to know which 
of the three was destined to be the damsel's choice. 
The soothsayer, without having seen the girl in ques- 
tion, though it is probable that he had found some 
means to obtain information concerning her, pro- 
ceeded to describe her appearance, her disposition, 
and her inclinations, what her past was and what her 
future would be. In short, he was so circumstantial 
that his distinguished patron, much impressed, informed 
the King of the matter, and the abbe received 
a command to fetch his astrological books to New- 
market and cast his Majesty's horoscope. " Such, 
Monsieur, is the beginning of the business," writes 
Colbert de Croissy to Lionne. "If it ends well, I 
shall have great things to tell you before long."* 

* Despatch of April i, 1669, cited by Forneron, Louise de Keroualle. 

7* 



ioo RIVAL SULTANAS 

He had indeed, though the affair had ended far 
from well, and the queer things he had to relate were 
not such as the Minister or his master cared to hear. 
For it would appear that the reverend astrologer, very 
possibly after dining or supping more wisely than 
well, had been so weak as to allow himself to be per- 
suaded into attempting to forecast the results of some 
of the races at Newmarket, with the most unfortunate 
results for those who had been misguided enough 
to place faith in his predictions, and for his mis- 
sion.* 

" He (Pregnani)," writes the Ambassador, " has 
not appeared satisfied with the King's mind, which, 
he says, inclines rather to trifles than to matters of 
importance. He hopes, nevertheless, Monsieur, that 
he will bring him to take a good resolution, from the 
apprehension that he will forecast in his horoscope 
impending disaster. However, the King told me, 
on his arrival [from Newmarket], that the abbe had 

* It is quite probable that Charles, much less credulous than the French 
fondly imagined, had seen through the design from the first. Any way, we 
find him writing to Louis XIV. as follows : 

" I find the poor Abbe Pregnani very much troubled, for fear that the 
railleries about foretelling the horse-matches have done him some prejudice 
with you, which I hope it has not done, for he was only trying new tricks, which 
he had read of in bookes, and gave them little credit, as we did. . . . The man 
has witt enough, and is as much your servant as is possible, which makes me 
love him." 

The poor abbe\ it may be mentioned, had suffered many things in his efforts 
to ingratiate himself with the indefatigable monarch. On one occasion, Charles 
pulled him out of bed at three o'clock on a cold March morning and made 
him ride with him to Audley End. On another, he invited him to accompany 
him from Audley End to Newmarket, to see a foot-race, the whole way being 
accomplished at a sharp trot, which shook the poor soothsayer so much that 
he arrived quite exhausted. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 101 

been very much deceived in the predictions that he 
had made about the results of each race at New- 
market, which were wrong in every single instance ; 
and that the Duke of Monmouth's servants had, on 
that account, heavy losses to lay to his charge, since 
they had wagered all that they possessed on the assur- 
ances of certain gain that he had given them. He 
[the King] has since indulged in other pleasantries, 
which leave no room for hope that he has much respect 
for his prognostications. Still, as the King has much 
curiosity, perhaps he will be very willing to learn in 
private what he affects to laugh at publicly."* 

Lionne was of the contrary opinion, judging very 
rightly that a sporting monarch was little likely to 
allow himself to be influenced by an agent who had 
proved himself an unreliable tipster ; and this un- 
fortunate attempt to apply sorcery to horse-racing 
caused the disgrace of the presumptuous abbe. " As 
for the Abbe Pregnani," writes the Minister disdain- 
fully, " since he has not acquired the credit that it 
was supposed he would obtain with the King by his 
astrology or his curiosities of chemistry, there is little 
appearance that he will be able to make more progress 
in the future. "f 

And the abbe was promptly recalled to France, with 
strict injunctions to dissimulate with all possible care 
the hopes, so little flattering to Charles II., that had 
been based on his mission. 

• Despatch of May 4, 1669, cited by Forneron. 

I From a letter of Charles II. to his sister, we learn that Pregnani was the 
dupe of his own predictions, as he backed them himself, and that " James [the 
Duke of Monmouth] believed him so much that he lost his money upon the 
lame score." 



ioz RIVAL SULTANAS 

The Pregnani fiasco was the more mortifying to 
Louis XIV. and his Ministers, inasmuch as Charles, 
who a few weeks before had seemed eager to come to 
terms with France, had now begun to hang back and to 
raise the price of his alliance, the reason being that 
whereas in the previous autumn the faithful Commons, 
being in a surly mood, had voted what his Majesty 
considered a totally inadequate supply, they had lately 
shown themselves more generously disposed. In these 
circumstances, Louis comprehended the necessity of 
yielding to his demands. The few remaining diffi- 
culties were left to be overcome by the Duchesse 
d'Orleans — through whose hands also the confidential 
letters had passed — who now paid her royal brother a 
long-promised visit. 

Madame embarked at Calais on the evening of 
May 24, accompanied by a suite of no less than 237 
persons. They numbered among them several ladies 
and gentlemen of very high rank, but the only one of 
her attendants with whom we need concern ourselves 
here was a young girl named Louise Renee de Penan- 
coet de Keroualle, a member of a poor but noble 
Breton family, who had some little time before entered 
Henrietta's service as maid-of-honour, and who was 
destined to become the agent and symbol of French 
influence at the Court of Charles II. and the ancestress 
of an English ducal House. 

Louise de Keroualle was of a very ancient lineage 
on both sides. In 1330, Francois de Pentroet, grandson 
of the Vice-Admiral of Brittany, married Jeanne de 
Penancoet, dame de Keroualle. The Pentroets de 
Penancoet were one of the four great families of the 




LOUISE DE KEROUALLE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 
From a painting by Pierre Mignard in the National Portrait Gallery. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 103 

bishopric of Leon, of whom it was said : The Pentroets 
for antiquity, the Chastels for valour, the Kermans 
for riches, and the Kergournadecs for chivalry. The 
children of the marriage assumed the name of their 
mother and her coat-of-arms — " jasce £ argent et d'azur 
de six fieces" — and in 1645 one of their descendants, 
Guillaume de Penancoet, married Marie de Ploeur de 
Timeur, daughter of Marie de Rieux. Of this union 
three children were born : two girls and a boy. The 
elder of the girls was the future mistress of Charles 
IL* 

" It does not count for much in our time," observes 
the lady's biographer, M. Henri Forneron, " to be a 
de Rieux, or to have a forefather so renowned for 
valour in the fourteenth century as the fair Louise was 
for gallantries in the seventeenth. But these old sou- 
venirs of race and blazon explain the circumstances 
of her goal, and enable us to understand how she was 
able to become maid-of-honour to Henrietta, Duchesse 
d'Orleans, and effectually dispose of the ridiculous 
adventures with which the pamphlets have bespattered 
her early years." 

The most widely known of these libellous fictions 
f ablished against her is " The Secret History of the 
Duchess of Portsmouth" (London, 1690), of which a 

* Louise's parents were well acquainted with Evelyn's father-in-law, Sir 
Richard Browne, who, shortly before the Restoration, when on a visit to Brest, 
had been entertained by them at their country-house, situated about a mile 
from that port. When M. de Keroualle and his wife came to England in 1675, 
Sir Richard returned their hospitality, and invited Evelyn to meet them. The 
diarist describes the father of the then Duchess of Portsmouth as " a soldierly 
person and a good fellow, as the Bretons generally are " ; while Madame de 
Keroualle, he says, had been very handsome and " seemed a shrewd, under- 
standing woman." Louise certainly inherited the maternal shrewdness. 



io 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

French translation appeared the same year.* Accord- 
ing to this, Mile, de Keroualle fled from the 
house of an aunt living in Paris, to whose care her 
parents had entrusted her, and, disguised as a page 
accompanied the Due de Beaufort, with whom she 
had fallen desperately in love, on the expedition to 
Candia. After the duke's death, she served as page to 
other officers before returning to France. Well, the 
Candia expedition lasted from the first week in June 
to the second week in October, 1669, and during the 
whole of that time Louise de Keroualle was at the 
French Court, acting as maid-of-honour to Madame. 
The calumny must have originated in the part taken 
in this unfortunate expedition by Louise's brother, 
Sebastian de Keroualle, who died soon after landing in 
Provence, on his return from Candia. 

Nevertheless, if we are to believe the memoirs and 
correspondence of the time, the damsel's conduct 
while at the Court of France would not appear to 
have been altogether free from reproach. In the same 
year in which the " Secret History " credits her with 
the escapade mentioned above, she became acquainted 
with the Comte de Sault, son of the Due de Lesdig- 
uieres, who in 1662 had been the chief victor in the 

* It was followed by a second English edition, entitled " The Life, Amours, 
and Secret History of Francelia, Duchess of P — h " (London, 1734), and M. 
Forneron states that a second French edition likewise appeared. It is a romance 
in the New Atalantis style, containing, however, more fact than fiction. All 
the earlier part is sheer invention ; the remainder is diversified by such charges 
as complicity in the death of Sir Edward Berry Godfrey, and of Charles II. 
himself. The proper names are thinly disguised. The Memoires secrets 
de la duchesse de P . . . , publies avec des bistoriques (2 vols. Paris, 1805) and 
ascribed to J. Lacombe are a mere elaboration of the above, with some original 
additions. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 105 

famous jousts held under the windows of the Tuileries, 
which gave their name to the Place du Carrousel. The 
Count, who was notorious for his gallantries, paid her 
such marked attention that he passed as her lover, and 
we shall see how, in after years, when Mile, de Keroualle 
had blossomed into the Duchess of Portsmouth, a 
haughty English dame, the Marchioness of Worcester, 
insultingly reminded her of this early attachment. 

Any way, it is beyond question that the reputation 
of " la belle Bretonne," as she had come to be called, 
was compromised ; Madame de Sevigne and Louvois 
speak of her in far from complimentary terms, while 
Saint-Simon says : " Her parents intended her to be 
the King's mistress, and she obtained the place of 
maid-of-honour to Henrietta of England. Unfortunately 
for her, Mile, de la Valliere was also maid-of-honour 
to the princess, and the King gave her the preference. 
If the latter had little intelligence, she was gentle, 
good-natured, and obliging, and made herself liked at 
the Court. One might therefore say, without attach- 
ing any importance to the libellous pamphlets, that, 
whether owing to indiscretions or ambitious words, 
Mile, de Keroualle had succeeded in creating the im- 
pression that she would not have objected to the role 
of King's favourite." 

Madame met with a most affectionate reception 
from her relatives in England. At five o'clock on the 
morning of May 25, when the cliffs of Dover were 
coming into sight, a boat was observed rowing at full 
speed towards the fleet. The princess hurried on 
deck, and saw that it contained both the King and 



106 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the Duke of York, who, accompanied by Prince 
Rupert and the Duke of Monmouth, had come to 
welcome her. After a joyful meeting, they all landed 
at Dover, and Madame was conducted to the castle, 
which had been prepared for her reception. " Madame 
is here in perfect health," wrote Colbert de Croissy, 
who had come to Dover to meet her. " The King of 
England has sent for the Queen and the Duchess of 
York and is doing everything possible to enliven this 
dreary place and make it agreeable to Madame." 

Henrietta's influence over her elder brother 
succeeded, as Louis XIV. had foreseen, in removing 
Charles's remaining objections, and on June I the 
Treaty of Dover was signed by Clifford, Arlington, 
and Arundel, on behalf of England, and by Colbert 
de Croissy, on the part of France. By this too-famous 
compact, which rendered England subservient to 
French interests at a time when, by the continuance 
of her alliance with Holland, the ambition of le Grand 
Monarque might easily have been checked, and thus 
must be considered mainly responsible for all the 
blood shed in Europe from that day until the Peace 
of Utrecht, Charles promised to declare himself a 
Catholic, as soon as it should be safe to do so, in return 
for which he was to receive £150,000 to assist him in 
any difficulties which might arise on that score, and 
engaged to aid France in a war against Holland, in 
consideration of which he was to have £225,000 a year, 
and the command of the coasts of Zealand, as his 
share of the spoil. He was also to assist Louis to 
make good his claim on the Spanish succession, 
and to receive, as his reward, Ostend and Minorca, 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 107 

together with any conquests he might make in South 
America. 

Louis thus secured his immediate object ; but, except 
for honour, Charles was no loser. He was, indeed, 
bound to declare his conversion, but the date was 
left absolutely to himself, while he was at once to 
receive the .£150,000 stipulated for; and after he had 
succeeded in plunging his kingdom into a war with 
Holland, and had thus gone so far with the treaty 
that money from France could not be refused him, 
he allowed the matter to lie dormant until the fear 
of death drove him to confess his real belief. 

No sooner was the Treaty of Dover — " le Traite de 
Madame" as the French termed it — signed than the 
trouble likely to be met with in carrying it out 
began to fill Charles with misgivings. It was im- 
possible to show the treaty as it stood to the King's 
Protestant servants — to Buckingham, Lauderdale, Ashley, 
Ormond, or Prince Rupert ; while it was equally 
impossible to conceal from them for any length of 
time the fact that a treaty had been made. In these 
circumstances, Charles had recourse to one of the 
most curious pieces of by-play in history. Taking 
advantage of the egotism of Buckingham, he allowed 
him to negotiate — in the firm belief that the suggestion 
was his own — a fresh treaty, " le traite simule" in 
which all mention of the King's conversion was 
omitted, the subsidy offered for that purpose being 
now added to that to be given for the war. The 
Traite simule was duly signed by Buckingham, Lauder- 
dale and Ashley, at the beginning of the following year. 

The direct object of Madame's journey having been 



io8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

thus accomplished, the remainder of her stay was spent 
in pleasant intercourse with the Royal Family. The 
anniversary of the Restoration was celebrated with 
great rejoicings. One day, Charles took his sister to 
Canterbury, where a ballet and a comedy were acted 
before her, followed by a sumptuous collation in the 
hall of St. Augustine's Abbey. On another, the royal 
party sailed in a yacht along the coast and paid 
a visit to the fleet. Wherever she went, Madame 
appears to have captured all hearts, and the impression 
made by her beauty and graciousness is reflected in 
the correspondence of many who were then present. 

The charming princess, however, was not the only 
one of the visitors from the opposite side of the 
Channel who succeeded in capturing hearts. Before 
many days had passed, it was observed that whenever 
Mile, de Keroualle happened to be in attendance 
on her mistress, the King's eyes were continually 
travelling in her direction ; and it was clear that " the 
childish, simple, baby face "* of the Breton maiden, 
her gentle, musical voice, and the languorous grace 
of her movements had made upon him the most pro- 
found impression — an impression which, it is generally 
believed, was the cause of the prolongation of the 
negotiations for the Treaty of Dover. 

On June 12, Madame sailed for France, and Charles 
showed his grief at his sister's departure by loading 
her with presents for herself and her friends. He gave 
her 6,000 pistoles to defray the expenses of her journey, 
presented her with 2,000 gold crowns to build a 
chapel at Chaillot in memory of their mother, Queen 

• Evelyn. 



THE TREATY OF DOVER 109 

Henrietta Maria, and on the eve of her departure 
bestowed upon her a number of costly jewels. At 
the same time, he begged her to leave him one of her 
own jewels as a parting souvenir. Henrietta readily 
consented, and, turning to Louise de Keroualle, who 
happened to be in attendance, bade her fetch her 
jewel-casket, that his Majesty might choose for himself. 
Louise was about to obey, when Charles, with a gallant 
bow, took the blushing maiden's hand and begged 
his sister to allow her to remain in England as maid- 
of-honour to the Queen, since she was the only jewel 
he coveted. 

From what subsequently occurred, we can well 
believe that had the decision rested with the "jewel" 
concerned, she would not have raised any very strong 
objection to expatriating herself, then and there. But 
Madame, to her credit, firmly refused to grant the 
King's request and told him that she was responsible 
to Mile, de Keroualle's parents for her safe return 
to France.* And so the lovelorn monarch had per- 

* Mr. Allan Fea, in his charming book, " Some Beauties of the Seventeenth 
Century " (Methuen, 1906), accuses Madame of having laid a trap for her 
amorous brother, and maintains that her refusal to grant his request was merely 
a clever move on her part to entangle him more firmly in it : " The snare which 
had been laid caught its victim, but the clever agent of the Grand Monarque 
was well acquainted with her brother's fickle disposition. A too easy conquest 
would make no lasting impression upon his heart, and the interests of France 
would suffer. Absence makes the heart grow fonder . . ." (That depends 
entirely, as La Rochefoucauld tells us, on how fond the heart happens to be 
at the moment of the separation). In regard to this, we may observe that there 
is absolutely no proof of the existence at the time of Madame' s visit to England 
of any design to establish Louise de Keroualle as the mistress of Charles II. 
Further, we are inclined to doubt whether Henrietta, who, though often 
lamentably indiscreet, was always pure, would have allowed herself to have 
been made a party to such a design, much less to initiate it. 



no RIVAL SULTANAS 

force to wave a sorrowful adieu to his new enchan- 
tress and return to Whitehall, to find what consolation 
he might in the society of his Castlemaines and 
Gwyns. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 

TTAPPY in the successful result of her mission, 
Madame returned to France ; but in the night 
of June 29-30, she died suddenly at Saint-Cloud, 
after some hours of terrible agony. Rumours of 
poisoning were instantly set afloat* and, to the 

• The belief that Madame had been poisoned was widely prevalent at the 
time and has been held by many authorities on the period, such as Walckenau 
and Francois Revaisson, and by specialists, like Dr. Legue, who, in his in- 
teresting work, Medecins and Empoisonneurs, devoted a new study to the ques- 
tion and endeavoured to prove that she was poisoned by corrosive sublimate. 
Suspicion pointed to the Chevalier de Lorraine, the infamous favourite of 
the Due d'Orleans, whom Madame had caused to be banished from the Court. 
He was supposed, not only to have instigated the crime, but to have supplied 
the poison, with which one of his accomplices impregnated a cup out of which 
the unfortunate princess was in the habit of drinking chicory water after 
dinner. Such was the opinion of Monsieur's second wife, Charlotte Elizabeth, 
Princess Palatine, and of Saint-Simon, though they acquit Monsieur himself 
of any knowledge of the plot. Both " the Palatine " and Saint-Simon were, 
however, confirmed scandalmongers ; and modern scientific investigation 
leaves very little doubt that Madame, who had been for some time in a very 
delicate state of health, and suffered from a chronic inflammation of the 
stomach, a form of gastritis, died of peritonitis, resulting from a chill which 
she had contracted while bathing in the river two or three days previously. 
See on this question the admirable study of M. Funck-Brentano, written in 
collaboration with Professor Paul Brouardel and Dr. Paul le Gendre, in his 
le Drame des poisons. 

Ill 



ii2 RIVAL SULTANAS 

consternation of Louis XIV. and his Ministers, the Eng- 
lish Court appeared inclined to believe them. When 
Sir Thomas Armstrong, despatched in all haste by 
Robert Montagu, the English Ambassador at Paris, 
arrived with the fatal news, Charles II. gave way to 
a violent outburst of grief and indignation, and 
heaped curses upon the head of the Due d'Orleans, 
whom he suspected of having instigated the crime. 
After a while, he recovered his composure, and pru- 
dently refrained from expressing his feelings in public. 
" Monsieur is a villain ! " he exclaimed, " but, Sir 
Thomas, I beg of you not to say a word of this 
to others." Nevertheless, the horrible suspicion of 
poison, which Madame herself had shared, gained 
ground rapidly, and excited a storm of popular in- 
dignation. 

" The King of England is inconsolable," wrote 
Colbert de Croissy to Lionne, " and what still further 
increases his affliction and his sorrow, is that there 
are many people who do not refrain from asserting 
that Madame was poisoned, and this malicious rumour 
is spreading so rapidly in the town that some of the 
rabble have declared that violent hands ought to be 
laid upon the French. Nevertheless, neither his Bri- 
tannic Majesty nor any member of the Royal Family 
have said anything to show that they attach any 
credence to reports so extravagant and so far removed 
from the truth. I await impatiently your news 
respecting the details of this death, and the measures 
which will have been taken, in order to be able to 
restrain the principal persons of this Court from the 
inclination they have evinced to believe evil and to 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 113 

receive the sinister impressions that have been given 
them. God give me grace to overcome this out- 
burst of anger, which, to tell you the truth, Mon- 
sieur, is not a little to be feared ! . . . The Duke of 
Buckingham is in the transports of a madman, and 
if the King were not more wise and prudent, and mi- 
lord Arlington very reasonable and well-intentioned, 
affairs here would be carried to the last extremities."* 

A day or two later, the Marechal de Belief onds, 
who had been chosen by Louis XIV. to offer his 
official condolences to the King of England, arrived 
at Whitehall. He brought with him a report drawn up 
by Vallot, one of the most eminent physicians of his 
time, who had been among the doctors present at the 
autopsy, confirming the opinion expressed by his 
colleagues that Madame had died of cholera morbus. 
Charles, however, received the marshal with a brusque- 
ness very unusual in him, and it was plain that his 
suspicions were far from allayed. " When is the 
Chevalier de Lorraine going to be recalled to the 
Court ? " he inquired sarcastically. 

" I replied," writes Bellefonds to Louis XIV., " that 
I did not know ; that it was not easy to divine what 
your Majesty thought about such trifling matters, 
and that no one would presume to speak about it, 
unless your Majesty first broached the subject." 

The situation was alarming, and Louis XIV. began 
to ask himself in all seriousness whether the Treaty 
of Dover was worth the parchment on which it was 

• Despatch of July 2, 1670, Mignet, Negotiations relatives d la succession 
iTEspagne sous Louis XIV. 



1 1 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

written, and whether it would not be advisable to 
renounce, for a time at least, his ambitious designs. 
Fortunately for him, matters soon began to assume 
a more hopeful aspect. Charles, whatever suspicions 
he might still have entertained about Monsieur, 
exonerated Louis from any responsibility in the 
affair, and was too anxious to finger the money which 
had been promised him to break his engagements to 
the French King ; while Buckingham, whose " trans- 
ports " had probably been occasioned more by the 
desire to court popular favour than by indignation 
at the supposed murder of the princess for whom he 
had so long advertised his passion, was won back by 
the persuasions of his old friend the Comte de Gra- 
mont, and by the promise of a pension from France 
for his mistress, the notorious Countess of Shrewsbury. 
Nevertheless, Louis felt that it was now more than 
ever necessary to have some one near the person of 
Charles who would be faithful to the interests of 
France, and use all his or her influence to ensure that 
monarch's subservience to his ambition. 

Towards the middle of July, Buckingham, now 
entirely reconciled to France, was sent to Versailles 
to convey Charles's thanks to the King of France for 
his condolences on the death of Madame, and to 
negotiate the false treaty of which we have already 
spoken. Louis XIV., though inwardly consumed with 
merriment, as the duke, with all the gravity imaginable, 
went through the farce of discussing and drafting 
this futile agreement, received him with the greatest 
distinction, gave him a pension of 10,000 livres for 
Lady Shrewsbury, and promised that he should 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 115 

command the English auxiliary force in the coming war. 
(Although " le Traite simule " provided for the em- 
ployment of an English army, Charles never had the 
least intention of sending one.) " I have had more 
honour done me," wrote the delighted Buckingham 
to Arlington, " than ever was done to any subject. 
Nothing but our being mealy-mouthed can hinder us 
from finding our account in this matter. For you may 
almost ask what you please. The King of France 
is so much taken with the discourse I make to him of 
his greatness by land that he talks to me twenty times 
a day. All the courtiers wonder at it." 

But Buckingham had still another duty to perform, 
and one of greater importance than negotiating 
farcical treaties. Before leaving England, Charles had 
commissioned him to renew to Mile, de Keroualle the 
offer which the King had made her at Dover. The 
duke carried out his instructions con amore, for he had 
been for some time past actively hostile to Lady Castle- 
maine, and was eager to see her deprived of her remain- 
ing influence. Indeed, having seen the impression that 
the fair Louise had made upon his susceptible master 
during the negotiations at Dover, he had fanned the 
flame, and had satirically remarked to Charles that 
he could show no more touching proof of his tender- 
ness for his sister's memory than by charging himself 
with the care of one of her favourite attendants. 

Louis and his Minister had, of course, been informed 
of the Dover episode, and had doubtless been pon- 
dering how they might facilitate Charles's wishes with- 
out arousing his suspicions that they were actuated 
by political motives ; and great must have been their 

8* 



u6 RIVAL SULTANAS 

satisfaction to learn of the instructions which he had 
given his Ambassador. 

Mile, de Keroualle, when first approached on the 
matter, gave Buckingham to understand that, while 
deeply sensible of the gooaness of his Britannic 
Majesty in wishing to provide for her future by offer- 
ing her the same post about the person of his Queen 
as she had held with Madame, the shock of her 
beloved mistress's death had been so great that she had 
resolved to have done with the world and to take the 
veil. But Louis added his persuasions to those of the 
duke — to a loyal Frenchwoman her Sovereign's 
wishes were, of course, equivalent to a command — 
and eventually she consented. That Louise, who, 
as we shall presently see, was an exceedingly shrewd 
young woman, was, in reality, ready enough to accept 
the brilliant dishonour which awaited her at White- 
hall — for, after what had happened at Dover, she 
could hardly pretend to mistake the meaning of her 
appointment as maid-of-honour to the luckless 
Queen Catherine — cannot be doubted ; but she did 
not intend Buckingham or his master to think that 
such was the case. 

Thus it came about that when Buckingham took 
leave of Louis XIV. and set out on his return to 
England, Mile, de Keroualle sat beside him in his 
luxurious travelling-carriage. 

" The Duke of Buckingham," writes the Marquis 
de Saint-Maurice, the Ambassador of Savoy, to Duke 
Charles Emmanuel II., " has taken with him Mile, 
de Keroualle, who was attached to her late High- 
ness ; she is a beautiful girl, and it is thought that 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 117 

the plan is to make her mistress to the King of Great 
Britain. He would like to dethrone Lady Castle- 
maine, who is his enemy, and his Most Christian 
Majesty would not be sorry to see the position filled 
by one of his subjects, for it is said the ladies have 
great influence over the mind of the King of England."* 
But Buckingham, as Burnet remarks, " was so full 
of mercury that he could not fix long in any friend- 
ship, or to any design," and certainly his conduct on 
this occasion is a striking illustration of the truth of this 
observation. Although it was obviously to his interest 
to neglect no means of ingratiating himself with Mile, 
de Keroualle, he treated her with the most astonish- 
ing want of consideration. On arriving at Dieppe, he 
took ship for England, promising to send a royal yacht 
to convey his fair charge across the Channel. But 
once back in London, the diversions of the town appear 
to have driven all thought of the young lady out of 
his head, and the latter, to her profound chagrin, was 
obliged to remain at Dieppe for nearly a fortnight, 
before Ralph Montagu, the English Ambassador, learned 
of what had occurred, and wrote to Whitehall that 
" Mile, de Keroualle hath been at Dieppe these ten 
days, and hears nothing of the yacht that the Duke of 
Buckingham, Mr. Godolphin tells me, was to send for 
her." The promised vessel was then despatched, and 
the girl escorted to London by some of Montagu's own 
suite, where she was received by the courteous Lord 
Arlington, who, with his wife, did all in his power to 
atone for the slight which she had suffered. But the 

• Despatch of September 19, 1670, cited by Mr. P. VV. Sergeant, " My 
Lady Castlemaine " (Hutchinson, 19 12). 



n8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

proud Bretonne never forgave Buckingham his delin- 
quency, and in years to come that volatile nobleman 
paid dearly for the dreary days which, thanks to him, 
the future Duchess of Portsmouth had been obliged to 
spend at Dieppe. 

The reigning sultanas, Lady Castlemaine and Nell 
Gwyn, prepared to resist the French invader. The 
former, it should be mentioned, was now known by a 
more exalted title, having in August of that year per- 
suaded Charles to confer upon her that of Duchess of 
Cleveland, together with a lavish pension ; and, in the 
decline of her reign, simulated greater power than 
ever, by extracting from the King all kinds of favours 
and surrounding herself with all the pomp and magni- 
ficence imaginable. At a great ballet in February, 
1670-71, she appeared " in a riche petticoat and half 
skirte, and a short man's coat very richly laced, a periwig, 
cravatt, and a hat : her hat and mask was very rich." 
She drove in the parks in a resplendent coach drawn by 
eight horses, and report said there were to be twelve. 
Her residence was Cleveland House, St. James's, upon 
the site of which now stands Bridgewater House, the 
name of which is preserved in that of Cleveland Row, 
where she lived in semi-royal state. 

Louise de Keroualle, on her side, was carefully 
reconnoitring the ground. She knew that a too rapid 
surrender would be detrimental to her own interests, 
and to those of France, since Charles, like most men, 
valued a mistress in proportion to the difficulties he 
might encounter in overcoming her resistance, and she 
was resolved not to yield until she felt sure of her empire 
over him. And so, though now and again she appeared 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 119 

to lend a willing enough ear to his Majesty's profes- 
sions of devotion, yet when he pressed her too closely, 
she invariably contrived to slip away from him, leaving 
him, as that most ingenious of literary forgers, La 
Beaumelle, makes Madame de Maintenon say of 
Louis XIV., " toujours afflige, mats jamais desespere." 
Yes ; that " childish, simple, baby face," of which 
Evelyn speaks, was a deceptive one — a mask for tran- 
scendant art and consummate finesse. 

However, the affected coyness of Mile, de Keroualle 
appears to have been misunderstood at Versailles, and, 
as the months went by without bringing them any 
definite assurance that the young lady's resistance had 
terminated, they became seriously uneasy. Their joy 
was therefore great, when, towards the end of Sep- 
tember, Colbert de Croissy reported that, while dining 
at the French Embassy the previous day, Mile, de 
Keroualle had been seized with a slight indisposition 
which inspired him with the hope that she had been less 
indifferent to the admiration of the King of England 
than he had been led to believe. 

" The influence of Madame de Cleveland," he writes 
to Louvois, " diminishes daily, in such manner that 
the efforts which the Conde de Molina [the Spanish 
Ambassador] has been making to entice her away from 
us and to make of her a good Spaniard, by means of 
his presents, will be futile. It appears, on the contrary, 
that the affection of the King of England for Mile, de 
Keroualle increases every day, and the little attack 
of nausea which she had yesterday when dining with 
me makes me hope that her good fortune will continue, 
at least all the remainder of my embassy." 



120 RIVAL SULTANAS 

To which the Minister, all joyful, replies : 

" The King was surprised at what you wrote me 
concerning Mile, de Keroualle, whose conduct while 
she was here, and since she has been in England, did not 
inspire much expectation that she would succeed in 
achieving such good fortune. His Majesty is anxious 
to be informed of the result of the connexion which 
you believe exists between the King and her." 

But the rejoicings were premature. The indisposi- 
tion of which Colbert de Croissy had spoken did not 
proceed from the cause which he suspected. So far 
from being about to present his Majesty with an addi- 
tion to his rapidly increasing family, Louise had not even 
crossed the Rubicon, but continued to blow hot and cold 
on the enamoured King. 

The Ambassador was becoming alarmed, for it seemed 
to him that the girl did not appreciate as she ought 
the diplomatic interests which depended on her sur- 
render ; and he was sufficiently well-acquainted with 
the character of Charles II. to know that, although 
Louise's resistance might, for a time, add zest to his 
pursuit and enhance her value in his eyes, yet he was 
not the man to allow himself to be long dominated by 
a prude — real or pretended — and that the day might 
not be far distant when he would seek consolation for 
her reserve in the attractions of some more facile beauty. 
In these circumstances, his Excellency decided that 
pressure must be brought to bear upon Louise to awaken 
her to a proper sense of the duty which she owed to her 
king and country, and he was so fortunate as to find 
valuable allies in Lord and Lady Arlington. 

" It is certain," writes Colbert de Croissy to Louvois 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 121 

" that the King of England shows a warm affection 
for Mile, de Keroualle, and perhaps you may have heard 
from other sources that a richly-furnished lodging has 
been given her at Whitehall. His Majesty repairs 
to her apartment at nine o'clock every morning, 
and never stays there less than an hour, and some- 
times two. He remains much longer after dinner, 
shares at her card-table in all her stakes and never 
allows her to want for anything. All the Ministers 
court eagerly the friendship of this lady, and milord 
Arlington said to me quite recently that he was very 
pleased to see that the King was becoming attached 
to her ; and that, though his Majesty was not the 
man to communicate affairs of State to ladies, never- 
theless, as it was in their power on occasion to render ill 
services to those whom they disliked and defeat their 
plans, it was much better for the King's good servants 
that his Majesty should have an inclination for this 
lady, who is not of a mischievous disposition, and 
is a gentlewoman, rather than for actresses and such- 
like unworthy creatures, of whom no man of quality 
could take the measure ; that when he went to visit 
the young lady every one was able to see him enter and 
leave and to pay his court to him ; and that it was 
necessary to counsel this young lady to cultivate the 
King's good graces, so that he might find with her 
nothing but pleasure, peace and quiet. He added 
that, if Lady Arlington took his advice, she would urge 
this young lady to yield unreservedly to the King's 
wishes, and tell her that there was no alternative for 
her but a convent in France, and that I ought to 
be the first to impress this upon her. I told him 



122 RIVAL SULTANAS 

jocularly that I was not so wanting in gratitude to the 
King or so foolish as to tell her to prefer religion to 
his good graces ; that I was also persuaded that she 
was not waiting for my advice, but that I would, none 
the less, give it her, to show how much both he and 
I appreciated her influence, and to inform her of the 
obligation which she was under to milord. I believe 
that I can assure you that if she has made sufficient 
progress in the King's affection to be of use in some 
way to his Majesty, she will do her duty." 

The Countess of Arlington was of her husband's 
opinion, and concocted with Colbert de Croissy the 
final surrender of the fair maid-of-honour. This 
Ambassador of France was a former president a mortier 
of the Parlement of Paris, " a safe and sagacious 
mediocrity," says Saint-Simon, " who atoned by dint 
of diligence and common-sense for the ill-temper and 
coarse manners of his family." He did not consider 
the traditions of the judiciary in any way incompatible 
with pandering to the vicious caprices of the Sovereign 
to whom he was accredited when there was any 
political purpose to be served, and spared no pains 
to ingratiate himself with him. " The King," he 
writes to Louvois in January, 1671," did me the honour 
to sup with me yesterday, when he showed, by in- 
dulging in a gay and unfettered debauch, that he does 
not distrust me." 

The Countess of Arlington was equally untroubled 
by scruples, though she had not, in this matter, the 
Ambassador's excuse of patriotic motives. She was 
a Dutchwoman, Isabella von Beverwent by name, a 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 123 

daughter of Louis of Nassau, and a sister of Lady 
Ossory. An ambitious, designing woman, she had 
betrothed her only daughter, Isabella, whom Evelyn 
describes as " a sweete child if ever I saw one," to the 
second son of the Duchess of Cleveland (Henry Fitzroy, 
afterwards Earl of Euston and Duke of Grafton), and 
desired to ensure herself against any loss of patronage 
which the approaching fall of the old favourite of the 
King might entail by facilitating the triumph of the 
new one and making her husband's country-seat, Euston 
Hall, near Thetford, the scene of it. 

The plan of campaign decided upon between Lady 
Arlington and the French Ambassador was as follows. 
In the second week in October, Charles proposed to 
leave Whitehall for Newmarket. Colbert de Croissy 
was to come to Euston and bring Mile, de Keroualle 
with him, and his Majesty, who would naturally take 
frequent opportunities of coming over from New- 
market to see his enchantress, was to be invited to 
remain the night and afforded every facility for prose- 
cuting his dishonourable suit and triumphing over 
the girl's last scruples. " I am going to his (Arling- 
ton's) country-seat of Euston," writes Colbert de 
Croissy to Louis XIV., " and, as the inclination of the 
King for Mile, de Keroualle, who makes this journey 
with me, is increasing daily, I doubt not that he will 
often come to visit us."* 

The plot met with the complete approval of the 
Most Christian King. " The King was very pleased 
with what your letter contained regarding Mile, de 
Keroualle," writes Louvois to the Ambassador, " and 

• Despatch of October 8, 1671, cited by Forneron. 



124 RIVAL SULTANAS 

will be interested to learn of the progress she makes 
in the good graces of the King of England." He 
even, it would appear, was pleased to jest upon the 
matter, and was of opinion that Charles " must have 
little love for his mistress, or must repose great con- 
fidence in you, to entrust her to your care on such a 
merry journey." 

Besides the Ambassador and Mile, de Keroualle, 
the Arlingtons had invited the Countess of Sunder- 
land and a great number of persons belonging to 
the Court, whom they entertained with the most 
prodigal magnificence. Evelyn, who was among the 
guests, has left us the following account of his visit to 
Euston : 

" His (Lord Arlington's) house is a very noble pile, 
consisting of a fine pavilion after the French, besides 
a body of a large house, and those not built together, 
but formed of an addition to an old house (purchased 
by his lordship of one Sir T. Rookwood), yet with 
a vast expense made not only capable and room- 
some, but very magnificent and commodious, as well 
within as without, nor less splendidly furnished. The 
staircase is very elegant, the garden handsome, the 
canal beautiful, but the soil dry, barren, and 
miserably sandy, which flies in drifts as the wind sits. 
... In my Lord's house, and especially above the 
staircase in the great hall, and some of the chambers 
and rooms of state, are paintings in fresco by Signor 
Verrio, being the first work that he did in England." 

" During my stay," the diarist continues, " his 
Majesty came almost every second day with the Duke 
[of York], who commonly returned to Newmarket ; 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 125 

but the King often lay here, during which time I had 
twice the honour to sit at table with him with all 
freedom. . . . On October 16, came all the great men 
from Newmarket and other parts both of Norfolk and 
Suffolk to make their court, the whole house filled 
from one end to the other with lords, ladies and 
gallants ; there was such a furnished table as I had 
seldom seen, nor anything more splendid and free, 
so that for fifteen days there were entertained at least 
two hundred people and half as many horses, besides 
servants and guards, at infinite expense. In the 
morning, we went hunting and hawking ; in the after- 
noon, till almost morning, to cards and dice, yet I 
must say without noise, swearing, quarrel or con- 
fusion of any sort. I, who was no gamester, had often 
discourse with the French Ambassador, Colbert, and 
went sometimes abroad on horseback with the ladies, 
to take the air, and now and then to hunting ; thus 
idly passing the time, but not without more often 
recess to my pretty apartment, where I was quite out 
of all this hurry, and had leisure to converse with books, 
for there is no man more hospitably easy to be with 
than my Lord Arlington, of whose particular friend- 
ship and kindness I had ever a more than ordinary 
share."* 

The scheme of Lady Arlington and Colbert de 
Croissy succeeded perfectly. " The King," writes 
the latter to Louvois, under date October 22, " comes 
frequently to take his repasts with us, and afterwards 
spends some hours with Mile, de Keroualle. He has 
already paid her three visits. He invited us yesterday 

• Diary, October, 1671. 



126 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to the races at Newmarket, where we were entertained 
very splendidly, and he showed towards her all the 
kindness, all the little attentions and all the assiduities 
that a great passion can inspire. And, since she has 
not been wanting, on her side, in all the gratitude 
that the love of a great King can deserve from a 
beautiful girl, it is believed that the attachment will 
be of long duration and that it will exclude all the 
others." 

But for the grand denoument let us turn again to 
Evelyn : 

" It was universally reported that the fair lady was 
bedded one of these nights, and the stocking flung 
after the manner of a married bride ; I acknowledge 
that she was for the most part in her undress all day, 
and that there was fondness and toying with that young 
wanton ; nay, it was said that I was at the former 
ceremony ; but it is utterly false ; I neither saw nor 
heard of any such thing whilst I was there, though I 
had been in her chamber, and all over that apartment, 
late enough, and was observing all passages with much 
curiosity. However, it was with confidence believed 
that she was first made a Miss, as they call these un- 
happy creatures, with solemnity at the time." 

And the writer adds with unconscious irony : 

" On Sunday, a young Cambridge divine preached 
an excellent sermon in the chapel, the King and the 
Duke of York being present." 

Although Evelyn neither saw nor heard anything 
of the alleged burlesque marriage, it is quite probable 
that such took place with all the immodest ceremonies 
of the time, for the story was going the round of the 



ACCESSION OF LOUISE DE KEROUALLE 127 

Court, and the pamphlets which it inspired are, as 
M. Forneron very truly remarks, " characterized on 
this occasion by a precision which seems to bear the 
stamp of truth " and affect to reproduce the very 
words of the young Frenchwoman, endeavouring to 
speak in a language with which she is as yet but 
imperfectly acquainted : " Me no . . . ; if me thought 
me were a . . ., me would cut mine own throat." 

What is certain, is that just nine months after her 
visit to Euston (July 29, 1672) Louise de Keroualle 
gave birth to a son, Charles Lennox, who was to become 
the ancestor of the present line of Dukes of Richmond, 
and that Louis XIV. sent orders to his Ambassador to 
convey his felicitations to the mother. " I have made 
Mile, de Keroualle very joyful," writes Colbert de 
Croissy to Louvois, " by assuring her that his Majesty 
would be very pleased that she maintains herself in 
the good graces of the King. There is every appear- 
ance that she will possess them for a long time, to the 
exclusion of every one else. ,? 



CHAPTER IX 

INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHERWISE 

"^["0 sooner was he informed that Mile, de Keroualle 
had become the mistress of Charles II., than 
Louis XIV. endeavoured to turn the influence of the 
young Frenchwoman to profit. Three advantages were, 
according to his calculation, to result from the intro- 
duction of this new element into English politics : the 
declaration of war against Holland ; the profession of 
the Roman Catholic faith by Charles, as a preliminary 
step to the reconciliation of his realm with the Church 
of Rome ; and the marriage of the recently-widowed 
James, Duke of York, to a princess of his own 
choosing. 

The first was almost immediately assured. In March, 
1672, to the intense disgust of a considerable part 
of the English people, Charles declared war against 
Holland, this act having been preceded by an un- 
successful attack on the Dutch Smyrna fleet, " a 
breach of faith," observes Burnet, " such as even 
Mahometans and pyrates would have been ashamed 
of, as ridiculous as it was base." At the end of April, 
Louis XIV., confident of an easy and brilliant triumph 
128 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 129 

— he carried a tame historian, Pellisson, in his train in 
order to hand his exploits down to posterity — advanced 
northwards, at the head of one hundred and twenty 
thousand men, and his troops poured at once over 
Holland. 

The profession by Charles of the Roman Catholic 
faith was not so easy to obtain, his Majesty having 
already received a very unmistakable hint as to the 
way in which such a step was likely to be regarded by 
his subjects. 

Just before war had been declared against Holland, 
Charles, in order to conciliate the Protestant Non- 
conformists, had issued a declaration of indulgence, 
in which he declared that it was his will and pleasure, 
in virtue of his supreme power in matters ecclesiastical, 
that the execution of the penal laws should be im- 
mediately suspended. Now, the King's right to dis- 
pense with statutes in individual cases was scarcely 
disputed, but this was a very different thing from a 
wholesale suspension of a series of Acts of Parliament ; 
and so dangerous did this power appear, both as a step 
towards arbitrary power and as a means of frustrating 
the efforts of Parliament in the suppression of Roman- 
ism, that the very Nonconformists, whom it was in- 
tended to please, opposed it. When in February, 1673, 
Parliament, which had been prorogued for twenty- 
one months, at length met, an address was carried 
begging the King to recall the declaration, and Charles, 
though complaining bitterly of the opposition of the 
Commons, dared not contest the matter. The 
victorious Opposition immediately followed up their 
success, and three weeks later Charles had given his 

9 



1 3 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

assent to the Test Act, which made it impossible for 
a Catholic to hold office under the Crown. 

His Majesty, in consequence, now thought only 
of finding pretexts for postponing sine die a profession 
of faith, for which he had been so liberally paid in 
advance, but which seemed likely to lead him into 
the most embarrassing complications with the mass of 
his people, and represented to the French Ambassador 
that the Pope was too old to bring to a happy con- 
clusion a step of such importance, and that the English 
Catholics were far too weak, both in numbers and in 
ability, to render him any effective support. His 
objections were combated by Louise de Keroualle, 
aided by the Queen's confessor, Father Patrick, who, 
writes Colbert de Croissy to Louvois, " is very rightly 
of opinion that religion can only be re-established in 
England by means of a close union between his Most 
Christian Majesty and the King of England." Their 
efforts were futile, however, for Charles did not intend 
" to go on his travels again " to please any one, and the 
fate which befell his successor proved how shrewdly he 
had judged the temper of his people on the question 
of religion. 

Louis XIV. and his fair agent at Whitehall were 
no more successful in their endeavours to dispose of 
the hand of the Duke of York. That prince had no 
sort of hesitation about professing his religion, but 
to guide his matrimonial aspirations was a difficult 
matter ; so very many ladies were anxious to console 
him for his bereavement. " All the belles of the Court," 
writes Colbert de Croissy to Louvois, " bedeck them- 
selves in order to make a conquest of the Duke of 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 131 

York."* At first, the widowed Duchess of North- 
umberland, who was not only beautiful but wealthy, 
threatened to bear away the prize ; then report 
favoured the candidature of Mary Bagot, widow of 
Charles Berkeley, Earl of Falmouth, a lady towards 
whom the King himself was so kindly disposed that in 
eight months in 1673 she received from him seven 
thousand pounds. However, Colbert de Croissy 
" doubted whether the prince's passion for the widow 
of the Earl of Falmouth is so great as to lead 
him to espouse her."f And he expressed the hope 
that the ducal affections might incline in the direc- 
tion of some French princess, if Louis XIV. could 
see his way to provide her with a suitable dot. 

Louvois was of opinion that there was no necessity 
for his Majesty to go to such expense, since they had a 
well-dowered princess ready at hand and one, moreover, 
who could hardly fail to present the duke with an heir 
in the shortest possible time, in the person of the 
widowed Duchesse de Guise. % " If the Duke of York," 
he writes, " is desirous of a wife in order to have chil- 
dren, he cannot make a better choice than Madame 
de Guise, who has been pregnant three times in two 
years, and whose birth, wealth, and prospects of 
fecundity appear to me to atone for her want of 
beauty." 

* Despatch of September 21, 1671, cited by Forneron. 

f The Ambassador's view of the situation proved to be correct, since, after 
getting all she could out of James's royal brother, the countess married Nell 
Gwyn's old lover, Charles Sackville, who had then become Earl of Dorset. 

% Elisabeth d'Orleans, second daughter of Gaston d'Orleans, brother of 
Louis XIII. ; married in 1667 Louis Joseph, sixth Due de Guise, who died in 
1671. 

9* 



1 32 RIVAL SULTANAS 

The Duke of York, meanwhile, was very far from 
showing any impatience to put an end to his widow- 
hood. He had lately discarded his mistress, the un- 
lovely Arabella Churchill, and taken unto himself a 
fresh left-handed consort, Catherine Sedley, daughter 
of the dissolute poet, Sir Charles Sedley, whose wit she 
had inherited.* Catherine was, if it be possible, even 
more ill-favoured than her predecessor in James's affec- 
tions, being pale, thin, and squint-eyed, and her " eleva- 
tion " caused Charles II. to observe that she must have 
been presented to his brother by his confessor as a sort 
of penance. The damsel — she was only sixteen at the 
time — seems to have been herself not a little astonished 
at the distinction conferred upon her. " It cannot be my 
beauty," said she, " for I have none ; and it cannot be 
my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any." 

This strange infatuation proved very embarrassing 
for the match-makers, but Colbert de Croissy refused 
to abandon hope, and assured Louvois that he was 
neglecting nothing to dispose his Royal Highness to re- 
gard a marriage with the Duchesse de Guise with 
favour. But, though he had the co-operation of both 
Mile, de Keroualle and the prince's confessor in this 
task, James showed not the slightest inclination to 
espouse the lady so thoughtfully selected for him. 
Reversing the usual order of things, he was prepared to 
tolerate cheerfully enough the lack of physical attrac- 
tions in a mistress, but not in a wife. 

* On becoming king, the Duke of York created Catherine Sedley Countess 
of Dorchester, and when he was dethroned by his daughter Mary, Sir Charles 
Sedley is said to have remarked, in voting for the latter in the House of 
Commons : " He made my daughter a countess ; I am making his a queen." 




CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA, QUEEN OF CHARLES THE SECOND 
From an engraving by S. Freeman, alter the painting by Sir Peter Lely. 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 133 

Although the King's passion for Mile, de Keroualle 
continued at a very high temperature, the Ambassa- 
dor's despatches to Versailles show that he was far from 
easy in his mind in regard to that young lady, and 
ignored none of the dangers which beset her from the 
rivalry of old favourites, such as the Duchesses of Cleve- 
land and Richmond, on the one hand, and the fresher 
theatrical ones, like Nell Gwyn and Moll Davis, on 
the other. He admits his apprehension that Mile, de 
Keroualle " may easily become the dupe of all these 
parties, and all the more so, because she does not know 
how to conduct herself in her good fortune, having 
got the idea into her head that she may become Queen 
of England. She talks from morning till night about 
the ailments of the Queen, just as though they were 
mortal." 

In justice to the new sultana, it should be observed 
that this view of the Queen's health was very generally 
held at the time, and Dr. Frazer, one of the King's 
physicians, after making a careful examination of her 
Majesty, pronounced that she was in a rapid decline, 
" which would put an end to her life in two or three 
months, or, at latest, in a year." 

" I am told," writes Colbert de Croissy, " that the 
moment that God calls this princess to Himself, 
the King was resolved not to allow a month to 
pass without satisfying the prayer of his subjects ; 
and that he desired a beautiful wife, of exalted birth, 
and capable of soon giving him children." But the 
Ambassador states his conviction that " the doctors 
only speak in this way in order to ingratiate them- 
selves with the King." 



i 3 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

This would appear, indeed, to be the only possible 
explanation of the extraordinary diagnosis just men- 
tioned, since Catherine of Braganza had still more 
than thirty-two years of life before her. However, 
the theologians seemed disposed to come to the 
aid of the doctors, some of them maintaining that 
the demise of a barren consort was by no means 
indispensable to allow of his Majesty taking unto him- 
self a second wife. And so Louise de Keroualle con- 
tinued to live in hope of one day assuming the crown 
matrimonial. 

That Charles ever seriously contemplated a marriage 
with Louise de Keroualle, in the event of finding him- 
self free to wed, is highly improbable, for such a step 
would have aroused the bitterest indignation among 
the great mass of the nation, who regarded the new 
mistress as the symbol of French and Papal influence, 
and warmly applauded the lampoons and satires which 
were directed against her. Moreover, great as was his 
infatuation for Louise, it was not sufficient to wean 
him altogether from the other occupants of his seraglio, 
and between December, 1671, and October, 1673, Nell 
Gwyn, the Duchess of Cleveland and Moll Davis all 
presented him with tokens of their affection. In the 
case of the Duchess of Cleveland, however, his Majesty 
refused to acknowledge the child — a daughter — as his 
own, and, indeed, the paternity was generally attri- 
buted to John Churchill, afterwards the celebrated 
Duke of Marlborough. 

The future hero of Blenheim, Oudenarde and Mal- 
plaquet was at this time a gay and impecunious 
young officer in the Guards, and is described as 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 135 

strikingly handsome, with a profusion of fair hair, 
strongly-marked, well-shaped eyebrows, blue eyes and 
refined and clear-cut features. His only blemish was 
a wart on his upper lip, but this did not detract from 
his good looks. He had made the amorous duchess's 
acquaintance through Mrs. Godfrey, his mother's 
sister, who filled the post of governess to the King's 
children, and is said to have designedly thrown her 
handsome nephew in her Grace's way, with a view to 
furthering his interests. 

The result, as she had anticipated, was an imme- 
diate intrigue between them, which, however, was 
conducted with so little discretion that it became 
known to the Duke of Buckingham. Always eager 
to seize a chance of doing his enemy an ill turn 
with the King, the duke, by bribing one of the 
duchess's servants, so contrived matters that Charles 
discovered the lovers together in Barbara's bed- 
room. 

A scene followed which has been variously described, 
one version being that his Majesty shouted sarcastically 
after his rival, who was making a hurried exit by way of 
the window : " I forgive you, sir, for I know you do but 
earn your bread." What is certain, is that this mis- 
adventure did not put an end to the intrigue, which 
was renewed annually during Churchill's winter visits 
to England throughout the Dutch war, from 1672 to 
perhaps as late as 1676, and that the gifts which the 
young Guardsman received from his open-handed 
mistress, and in particular one of .£5,000, with which 
Churchill prudently purchased an annuity of ^500 from 
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, helped to lay the 



136 RIVAL SULTANAS 

foundation of the wealth of the first Duke of Marl- 
borough.* 

The fruit of this liaison, a girl, who was called Barbara 
after her mother, would appear to have inherited that 
lady's amorous propensities, since at the age of eighteen 
she had a love-affair with James Douglas, Earl of Arran, 

* To supply Churchill with this ^5,000, without putting herself to incon- 
venience, the duchess is said to have extracted double that amount from the 
notorious spendthrift and rake Sir Edward Hungerford, an incident which 
is alluded to by Pope in the following lines : 

" Who of ten thousand gulled her Knight, 
Then asked ten thousand for another night. 
The gallant, too, to whom she paid it down, 
Lived to refuse his mistress half-a-crown." 

The story of Churchill having " refused his mistress half-a-crown " appean 
to rest upon the authority of the imaginative Mrs. Manby, who relates it in 
the first volume of " The New Atalantis," wherein Churchill figures as Count 
Fortunatus and Barbara as the Duchesse de PInconstant. 

" The Duchess," she says, " who had oftentimes not a pistole at her command, 
solicited of the Count (whom she had raised by her favour with the Court) 
that her affairs might be put into a better position, but he was deaf to all her 
entreaties, nay, he carried ingratitude much further : one night, at an assembly 
of the best quality, when the Count tallied to them at Basset, the Duchess 
lost all her money, and begged the favour of him in a very civil manner to lend 
her twenty pieces, which he absolutely refused, tho' he had a thousand on the 
table before him, and told her coldly the bank never lent any money. Not a 
person upon the spot but blamed him in their hearts : as to the Duchess's 
part, her resentment burst out into a bleeding at her nose, and breaking of 
her lace, without which aid, it is believed her vexation had killed her on the 
spot." 

Whatever basis of truth there may be in this anecdote, which is described 
by Curll as a piece of " travelling scandal," it can hardly be said that it was 
not characteristic of Marlborough. So notorious, indeed, was the great 
soldier's meanness that when, during his period of unpopularity, the celebrated 
Earl of Peterborough found himself mistaken for him and his coach beset by 
a howling mob, he escaped by crying out : " Gentlemen, I can convince you 
by two reasons that I am not the duke. In the first place, I have only five 
guineas in my pocket ; and, in the second, they are heartily at your service." 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 137 

afterwards fourth Duke of Hamilton, killed by Lord 
Mohun in the celebrated duel of 1707, whom she pre- 
sented with a son. At the time of the child's birth, 
Arran was enjoying a period of enforced leisure in the 
Tower, and the discovery of the intrigue so incensed 
Queen Mary and the young man's father, the Duke of 
Hamilton, that they made it a condition of his release 
that Lady Barbara should retire abroad. She departed 
accordingly for France, and, having decided to enter 
religion, made her profession as a nun at the Couvent 
de Saint-Nicholas at Pontoise, in Normandy, of which 
house she subsequently became prioress. She died in 
May, 1737, in her sixty-sixth year. 

The love-affair of the Duchess of Cleveland with the 
future Duke of Marlborough had been preceded by one 
with William Wycherley, the dramatist, one of the 
handsomest men about town, whose first play, Love in 
a Wood, or St. James's Park, had just been produced. 
How it came about is amusingly related by John 
Dennis, the friend of Wycherley, Dryden and Congreve, 
in his " Original Letters," and the episode is so character- 
istic of the morals of the time that we give it in his 
own words : 

" Upon writing his first play, which was St. James's 
Park, he became acquainted with several of the most 
celebrated wits both of the Court and Town. The 
writing of that play was likewise the occasion of 
his becoming acquainted with one of King Charles's 
mistresses after a very particular manner. As Mr. 
Wycherley was going through Pall Mall towards St. 
James's in his chariot, he met the foresaid lady in hers, 



138 RIVAL SULTANAS 

who, thrusting half her body out of the chariot, cryed 
out aloud to him, ' You, Wycherley, you are a son of 
a . . . .' at the same time laughing heartily. Perhaps, 
sir, if you never heard of this passage before, you may 
be surprised at so strong a greeting from one of the 
most beautiful and best-bred ladies in the world. Mr. 
Wycherley was certainly very much surprised at it, yet 
not so much but he soon apprehended it was spoken 
with allusion to the latter end of a song in the fore- 
mentioned play : 

When parents are slaves 

Their brats cannot be any other, 
Great wits and great braves 

Have always a ... to their mother. 

" As, during Mr. Wycherley's surprise, the chariots 
drove different ways, they were soon at a considerable 
distance from each other, when, Mr. Wycherley, re- 
covering from his surprise, ordered his coachman to drive 
back and to overtake the lady. As soon as he got over- 
against her, he said to her : ' Madam, you have been 
pleased to bestow a title on me which generally belongs 
to the fortunate. Will your ladyship be at the play 
to-night ? ' ' Well,' she replyed, ' what if I am there ? ' 
' Why, then I will be there to wait on your ladyship, 
tho' I disappoint a very fine woman, who has made me 
an assignation.' ' So,' said she, ' you are sure to dis- 
appoint a woman who has favour'd you for one who 
has not.' ' Yes,' he replyed, ' if she who has not favoured 
me is the finer woman of the two. But he who will be 
constant to your ladyship, till he can find a finer woman, 
is sure to die your captive.' The lady blushed, and 
bade her coachman drive away. As she was then in all 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 139 

her bloom, and the most celebrated beauty that was 
then in England, or perhaps that has been in England 
since, she was touched with the gallantry of that com- 
pliment. In short, she was that night in the first row 
of the King's box in Drury Lane, and Mr. Wycherley 
in the pit under her, where he entertained her during 
the whole play. And this, sir, was the beginning of a 
correspondence between these two persons, which after- 
wards made a great noise in the town." 

Voltaire says that Wycherley was " for a long time 
known to be happy in the good graces of the duchess," 
and that the lady used to visit him at his chambers in 
the Temple, " dressed like a country-maid, in a straw- 
hat, with pattens on, and a basket in her hand ; " but 
we can hardly believe that the haughty Barbara would 
ever have condescended to such a disguise, even to enjoy 
the society of a favourite admirer. 

Wycherley's romance with the duchess does not 
appear to have caused the King any resentment, for 
when, a few years later, the dramatist was recovering 
from a serious illness, Charles visited him at his lodgings, 
advised him to winter in the South of France to recruit 
his health, and gave him a sum of money to defray the 
expenses of his journey. Subsequently, he offered him 
the post of tutor to the Duke of Richmond, his son by 
Louise de Keroualle, with a salary of £1,500 a year; 
but Wycherley's marriage with the widowed Countess 
of Drogheda* caused him to decline it. 

* This lady, who was a daughter of the first Earl of Radnor, appears to have 
been a veritable dragon of jealousy and to have led her husband, in conse- 
quence, far from a happy life. " She was jealous of him to distraction," 
writes Dennis, " jealous of him to that degree that she could not endure that 



Ho RIVAL SULTANAS 

The irregularities of the Duchess of Cleveland's life 
were no doubt the reason why, at the beginning of 1672, 
the King's visits to her, hitherto of almost daily occur- 
rence, became much less frequent, and for a time ceased 
altogether. " The King," writes Charles Lyttelton to 
Lord Hatton, under date February 22, 1672, " has of 
late forborn visiting my Lady Cleveland, but some two 
days since was with her again, and I suppose will con- 
tinue to go sometimes, though it may not be so often." 
And, a month later, we learn from the same source that 
" the King goes but seldom to Cleveland House." It 
is probable that intimate relations between Charles 
and the duchess had already ceased, and that his 
Majesty's visits to Cleveland House were merely friendly 
ones, and paid, perhaps, quite as much to his children 
as to their mother. 

To these children, Charles, ever the kindest of fathers, 
was much attached, and, though the duchess had lost 
her hold upon the King's affections, she succeeded in 
securing the highest honours and great marriages for all 
of them. 

Her eldest son, Charles Fitzroy, who had been installed 
a Knight of the Garter in 1673, was in September, 1675, 
raised to the peerage by the titles of Baron Newbury, 
Earl of Chichester, and Duke of Southampton. 

The second, Henry, married on August 1, 1672, to 
Arlington's little daughter, Isabella Dennet, was the 



he should be a moment out of her sight. Their lodgings were in Bow Street, 
Covent Garden, over against the ' Cock,' where, if he at any time went with 
his friends, he was obliged to leave the window open, that the lady might see 
that there was no woman in the company, or she would be immediately in 
a downright raving condition." 



INTRIGUES, POLITICAL AND OTHER 141 

same month created Earl of Euston, the title being 
derived from Arlington's country-seat, of which he was 
the probable heir. In September, 1675, he was made 
Duke of Grafton. 

The youngest of the three boys, George, received, in 
October, 1674, the titles of Baron Pontefract, Viscount 
Falmouth, and Earl of Northumberland. 

Their two sisters, the Ladies Anne and Charlotte 
Fitzroy, were married respectively in August, 1674, 
to Thomas Lennard, fourteenth Lord Dacre, after- 
wards Earl of Sussex, and to Edward Henry Lee, Earl 
of Lichfield, a sum of over fifteen hundred pounds 
being provided out of the Secret Service expenses 
of the King to defray the cost of their sumptuous 
wedding-dresses of gold and silver lace. Charles was 
very fond of both the girls, the elder of whom was 
to be the cause of not a little trouble to him after 
her marriage.* 

By the Test Act of March 20, 1672- 1673, which im- 
posed upon all who held any temporal office the necessity 
of receiving the Sacraments, according to the rites 
of the Church of England, and a formal denial of the 
doctrine of Transubstantiation, the Duchess of Cleve- 
land had to resign her post as Lady of the Bed- 
chamber to the Queen. But, though she thus lost 

* Mr. Allan Fea, in his " Some Beauties of the Seventeenth Century," cites 
a characteristic letter from Charles to Charlotte Fitzroy : " I have had so 
much business since I came hither that I hope you will not thinke that I have 
neglected writing to you out of want of kindness to my deare Charlotte. I 
am going to Newmarket to-morrow and have a great deal of business to 
despatche to-night. Therefore, I will only tell you now that I have five 
hundred guineas for you, wch. shall be either delivered to yourself, or any who 
you shall appoint to receave it, and so, my deare Charlotte, be assured that 
I love you with all my harte, being your kinde father, C. R." 



142 RIVAL SULTANAS 

her official standing at Whitehall, as she had the place 
she had so long held in the King's affections, she 
continued to reign as sovereign in all the Court fes- 
tivities, and from this position the new favourite found 
it impossible to dislodge her, until, in April, 1677, the 
duchess migrated to Paris to escape the too-pressing 
attentions of her creditors. 






CHAPTER X 

LOUISE DE KEROUALLE BECOMES DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 

TT must be admitted that, great as was the political 
influence which Louise de Keroualle had acquired, 
she used it with tact and moderation. She appears 
to have understood the temper of the English people 
far better than the Ministers at Versailles, or even 
than the French Ambassador, and very soon came 
to the conclusion that to force Charles into a pro- 
fession of the Roman Catholic faith would be a most 
imprudent step, fatal alike to her own ascendency 
and the interests of France. She accordingly begged 
Colbert de Croissy to represent to Louis XIV. that, 
if the King of England were to declare himself a 
Catholic, every one would forsake him, since the bulk 
of the nation and the majority in the House of 
Commons was anti-Papal. " One must no longer 
hope," wrote the Ambassador, " that Charles II. will 
proclaim himself a Catholic. The Duke of York, 
by his premature zeal, has ruined this great design. 
We must think only of insensibly accustoming the 
people to tolerate Catholicism." 
143 



i 4 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

On the question of the marriage of the Duke of 
York, Mile, de Keroualle held different views to the 
French Government. She was in accord with them 
so far as the desirability of James's marrying a French 
princess was concerned; but, whereas Versailles pressed 
the claims of the Duchesse de Guise, whom Louvois 
had proposed, the mistress inclined to one of the 
demoiselles d'Elbceuf,* the young daughters of the Due 
d'Elbceuf. 

Lionne, the ablest of all Mazarin's pupils, had died 
at the end of 1671, and had been succeeded as Minister 
for Foreign Affairs by Arnauld de Pomponne. The 
new Minister was an excellent man, of considerable 
ability and great charm of manner, but he did not 
possess sufficient weight or self-assertion to resist the 
overbearing temper of Louvois, nor the energy and 
tenacity required to grapple with difficult situations ; 
and so it was Louvois, rather than the nominal head 
of the Foreign Office, who now directed the course of 
French diplomacy. 

To the great chagrin of that personage, the reports 
which he received from London represented the Duke 
of York as being far from favourably disposed to the 
proposed marriage with Madame de Guise, an atti- 
tude which Colbert de Croissy attributed to the 
unflattering description which the late Duchesse 
d'Orleans had given her brother of the widow's per- 
sonal appearance. " He says," writes the Ambassador, 
" that he wishes to be content with one wife, and 
that he wants her to be beautiful." 

* Marie Eleonore de Lorraine, born in 1658, and Marie Francoise, born in 
1659. Both subsequently became nuns at the Couvent de la Visitation in Paris. 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 145 

His Excellency added that Charles II. had informed 
him that he recognized in his brother two great fail- 
ings ; one concerning religion and the other on the 
subject of marriage ; that the first had already done 
him a great deal of injury, and there was reason to fear 
would do him still more in the future ; while, in 
regard to marriage, he had perceived, ever since the 
death of his wife, that he was very disposed " to make 
a fool of himself a second time," and commit another 
misalliance ; and that, to prevent this, he had suggested 
to him all the princesses he could think of who were 
devoted to the interests of France, knowing that the 
duke was of so uxorious a disposition that he was 
certain to be governed by his wife. 

Louvois, however, refused to abandon his cherished 
project, and, by his directions, Colbert de Croissy con- 
tinued to press the claims of Madame de Guise upon 
the prince's attention ; although by so doing the 
French Court ran the risk of offending James and 
turning him altogether from the idea of marrying 
a French princess. Louise de Keroualle, who was 
on very friendly terms with the Duke of York, per- 
ceived the danger of this, and, in an interview with 
the Ambassador, represented to him the folly of 
endeavouring to impose a mature and by no means 
attractive widow upon the duke, who prided himself 
upon being somewhat of a connoisseur in feminine 
beauty and had set his heart upon a consort of virginal 
attractions. " Mile, de Keroualle," writes Colbert to 
Louis XIV., " who has caused the Princess of Wurtem- 
berg to be excluded from the list of candidates, has 
exerted herself at the same time with so much ardour 

10 



146 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to cause one of the demoiselles d'Elboeuf to be pre- 
ferred to any one else, that no one will now listen to 
the praises of the Duchesse de Guise. Yesterday, 
in the Queen's chamber, Mile, de Keroualle drew 
me aside and told me that the Duke of York would 
have preferred Mile. d'Elbceuf, even if he had found 
me much less encouraging ; and she begged me not 
to offer any opposition to this marriage, and even to 
make it known that it would not be disagreeable to 
your Majesty."* 

Thus, the young girl who had held so insignificant 
a position at the little Court of the Duchesse d'Orleans, 
had become the patroness of the proud ladies of the 
House of Lorraine. The Duchesse d'Elbceuf was a 
daughter of the Due de Bouillon and sister of the 
celebrated Marechal de Turenne, and that she should 
have permitted Louise de Keroualle to patronize 
her daughters was indeed a striking testimony to the 
political importance which the new favourite of 
Charles II. had acquired in so short a time. 

The demoiselles d'Elbceuf were poor, but Mile, de 
Keroualle counted on their beauty to atone for their 
lack of riches, and she sent for their portraits and 
placed them in a conspicuous position in her apart- 
ments at Whitehall, in order to accustom the Duke 
of York to their charms. Colbert de Croissy was 
indignant at his former protegee's conduct, which, in 
one of his despatches to Pomponne, he ascribes " as 
much and even more to a desire to demonstrate what 
power she enjoys as to prove her friendship for this 
family (the d'Elbceufs.) " He adds that he is doing 

* Despatch of July 24, 1673, cited by Forneron. 




JAMES, DUKE OF YORK, AFTERWARDS JAMES II. 
From a phott graph by Emery Walker, of the painting by Sit Peter Lely at St. Jar, 
Copyright or H.M. the King. 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 147 

everything possible to destroy the web which she was 
weaving round the heir presumptive to the English 
throne, but feared that the latter might end by falling 
a victim to her wiles. 

The Ambassador, conscious of his inability to cope 
single-handed with Mile, de Keroualle, summoned 
Arlington to his aid, and the two remonstrated in 
strong terms with the young lady, reminded her of 
the stratagem to which they had stooped to secure 
her her present exalted position, and reproached her 
with her ingratitude ; Arlington telling her bluntly 
that she seemed to forget the obligations under which 
they had placed her as quickly as she did a good 
dinner. 

Their remonstrances would not appear to have had 
much effect ; nevertheless, Mile, de Keroualle had the 
tact to discontinue her efforts on behalf of the demoi- 
selles d'Elboeuf, and to resign herself to the Duke of 
York's marriage with Mary of Modena, when she learned 
that Louis XIV. himself was opposed to the alliance 
which she favoured. For she had private reasons just 
then for wishing to render herself particularly agreeable 
to the King of France. 

At the beginning of that year the favourite had 
requested of Louis XIV. permission to become a 
naturalized British subject, " as a necessary means," 
wrote Colbert de Croissy to Pomponne, " to enable her 
to profit by the gifts which the King of England might 
have the kindness to bestow upon her." This permission 
was accorded, and the lady's naturalization was followed, 
in August, 1673, by her being created Baroness Peters- 
field, Countess of Farnham, and Duchess of Portsmouth, 

10* 



i 4 8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to the profound disgust of both Court and town — a 
feeling inspired not by the fact that she was the King's 
mistress, but because she was a foreigner and a Roman 
Catholic. 

But, though these high-sounding titles were doubt- 
less very gratifying to Louise's pride, they did not 
content her. In the eyes of the new Duchess of Ports- 
mouth—a true Frenchwoman — a French title would 
have been infinitely more precious. Her ambition was 
one day to return to the Court of France, which had 
known her as a humble and portionless maid-of-honour 
to the late Duchesse d'Orleans, and to have the privilege 
of sitting on the coveted tabouret in the presence of the 
Queen, as a French duchess. 

The tabouret was the ambition of every Frenchwoman, 
no matter how high the rank she might have attained 
in a foreign country. When Marie d'Arquien married 
Jean Sobieski, before he became King of Poland, her 
one desire, until she assumed the crown matrimonial, 
was to obtain a tabouret at the Louvre ; and she impor- 
tuned her husband to use his influence with Louis XIV. 
to secure what he termed " this miserable stool," 
until he was almost distracted. No privilege was more 
jealously guarded, and though the Sovereign might 
create a simple gentlewoman who happened to take his 
fancy a duchess without a protesting voice being raised, 
he could not bestow a tabouret upon the wife of a marquis 
without running the risk of arousing a perfect storm 
of indignation among the nobility. In 1650, in the 
interval between the two Frondes, the Great Conde, 
at the instigation of his sister, Madame de Longue- 
ville, demanded of the Regent tabourets for the Princesse 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 149 

de Marsillac, wife of the celebrated La Rochefoucauld, 
who had not yet succeeded to the family title, and for 
the Marquise de Pons, who claimed descent from the 
House of Albret ; and Anne of Austria, unable at the 
moment to refuse anything to Conde, felt obliged to 
accede to the request. But the granting of the 
tabouret to the wife of the son of a duke and to a mere 
marchioness, whose claim to belong to the House of 
Albret had never been admitted, provoked a veritable 
tempest of protest from almost the entire aristocracy 
of the kingdom. Nobles who had regarded the Fronde 
as " une guerre 'pour rire" who had cared not a sou 
whether Alsace belonged to France or the Empire, or, 
indeed, for any question which did not directly affect 
their own interests, were beside themselves with indig- 
nation at the thought that Mesdames de Marsillac and 
de Pons should have the privilege of being seated in 
the presence of the Queen, while their own wives were 
compelled to stand. The Marechal de l'Hopital pre- 
sented to her Majesty a petition signed by an immense 
number of the nobility, including many of the most 
illustrious names in France, setting forth their objec- 
tions to the tabourets just conferred, and begging her 
to revoke them without delay ; and several meetings 
of protest were held at his hotel. Nor was it until, 
notwithstanding the remonstrances of Conde, the 
Regent had consented to withdraw both tabourets that 
the Court resumed its wonted calm. 

On the death of the Duke of Richmond, husband of 
" La Belle Stuart," in December, 1672, the estate of 
Aubigny-sur-Nievre, in Berry, which had been raised 
to a ducal fief in 1422 by Charles VII. in favour of the 



1 5 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

duke's ancestor, John Stuart, who had served under 
that king, had reverted to the Crown of France. In 
the following July, Charles II. spoke to Colbert de 
Croissy of his desire " to obtain for Mile, de Keroualle 
the enjoyment of the estate of Aubigny, in such manner 
that this demoiselle should be able, not only to possess 
it during her lifetime, but even to dispose of it freely, 
assuring me that he, on his side, would take precautions 
to prevent it passing from the Royal House of England, 
and making me understand that it should remain in 
the hands of the son whom he has by this demoiselle."* 

Colbert de Croissy, who was just then in the midst 
of his struggle with Louise de Keroualle on the question 
of the demoiselles d'Elbceuf, and much irritated against 
the favourite, transmitted this demand to Versailles 
with a very bad grace, declaring that, in his opinion, 
the lady in question was quite undeserving of any favour 
at the hands of Louis XIV. " But, as it appears," he 
adds, " that the King of England has much affection 
and kindness for her, I leave his Majesty to judge what 
consideration ought to be paid to the request of the said 
King." 

Louis XIV., though unwilling to offend his ally by 
a refusal of his request, was determined not to grant 
all that he demanded. Were Aubigny to be given to 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, it would be detached again 
from the royal domain, and go, on the duchess's death, 
into the possession of her son. Well, this son, although 
now a year old, had not yet been recognized by Charles, 
the fact being that that monarch, who was just then 
on very bad terms with the House of Commons, had 

• Despatch of Colbert to Pomponne, July 17, 1673. 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 151 

not considered it expedient to announce the fact that 
he had had another addition to his family, and the 
patent creating Louise de Keroualle Duchess of Ports- 
mouth provided that the son already born was incapable 
of succeeding. Louis XIV. had no objection to bestow- 
ing a ducal fief on Charles's mistress or to it passing 
into the possession of a recognized son of Charles, but 
he did not wish to create Louise a French duchess, 
and he was strongly opposed to the idea of Aubigny 
falling to a nameless bastard. 

Finally, Colbert de Croissy hit upon a solution of the 
difficulty. He proposed that a donation of Aubigny 
should be made in favour of the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
with remainder to whatever recognized son of Charles 
he should appoint to succeed her. Thus, Louis XIV. 
would be able to avoid making the favourite a French 
duchess ; she would merely receive a ducal fief. 

The suggested compromise was accepted by Charles, 
and Louise de Keroualle, though sorely disappointed 
that the title of Duchess d'Aubigny, carrying with it 
as it did the coveted right to a tabouret, had not been 
accorded her, consoled herself with the reflection that 
her services were far too valuable to France for it to 
be withheld for very long. 

We are inclined to think that if Charles had pressed 
for the title which was, for the present, refused his 
mistress, Louis XIV. would have yielded rather than 
risk offending the King of England, whose friendship 
was more than ever necessary to him in the face of the 
rapidly increasing hostility of the English people to the 
French alliance, and the enemies which his successes 



152 RIVAL SULTANAS 

in the Netherlands had raised up against him. For 
Louis's ambitious schemes had entirely destroyed the 
bases of European policy laid down at the Peace of 
Westphalia ; old antagonisms had given way before 
the dread of a French universal monarchy, and the 
Emperor, the recognized head of the Catholic world, 
and the Most Catholic King of Spain had joined hands 
with William of Orange, the Stattholder of Protestant 
Holland, to resist the aggressor. Louis, who, having 
taken Maestricht in the campaign of 1673 and thus 
cleared the line of the Meuse, had decided that the 
following year should witness the conquest of Franche- 
Comte and the invasion of the Palatinate, felt himself 
to be more than a match for all his foes, provided that 
he could reckon on the support, or, at any rate, the neu- 
trality, of England ; but, should England turn against 
France and ally herself with Spain, the Empire, and 
Holland, then, as the Comte d'Estrades wrote to 
Louvois, " we shall not see in our days the end of 
this war." And, unfortunately for Louis, he could not 
disguise from himself the fact that England was slipping 
from his hands. 

On October 20, 1673, Parliament met in a very 
truculent humour, which only too closely reflected 
the temper of the nation. The marriage of the Duke 
of York to Mary of Modena* — a marriage known to 
have been arranged in deference to the personal 
wishes of Louis XIV. — which not only opened out the 

* James had been married by proxy to Mary of Modena on September 30, 
1673, but the princess's arrival in England was delayed by illness until 
November 21. The populace declared that she was " the eldest daughter of 
the Pop«." 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 153 

prospect of a long Catholic succession, but expressed 
in a concrete form the alliance of Charles with France 
and Catholicism ; the frequent and open evasions of 
the Test Act ; the assembling of an army at Black- 
heath, commanded by a foreigner, Louis de Duras, 
Earl of Feversham, and largely officered by Catholics ; 
and the almost universal belief that the backwardness 
of the French squadron in the recent naval engage- 
ment with the Dutch had been due to the decision of 
Louis to see the fleets of the two great maritime Powers 
destroy each other — had all contributed to exasperate 
the people against the Government. Member after 
member rose in the Commons to urge that the grant- 
ing of supplies should be made conditional on the 
redress of grievances, and to hint not obscurely that 
the money voted for the carrying on of the war had 
been squandered by the King on his favourites and 
their offspring.* Then they were proceeding to 
denounce his Majesty's " evil counsellors," when 
Charles intervened by proroguing Parliament until 
January 7, 1674. 

* It is a somewhat ironical coincidence that at the same time that the 
Commons were criticizing the morals of their Sovereign, they were advertising 
the laxity of their own. A violent attack was made upon the conduct of the 
Speaker, Edward Seymour, by Sir Thomas Littleton and Will Harbord, the 
latter of whom accused him of " playing and gaming great summes of the 
publicke money," and also stated that one night a low woman of the town had 
" brought a bastard to his doore and charged it upon him, which drew five 
hundred people about his house to learn the matter." 

In other respects, it must be admitted that Speaker Seymour worthily 
upheld the dignity of his office, for we read that one day at Charing Cross, 
when his coach happened to break down, the beadles by his orders stopped the 
next which passed, and that Seymour drove away in it, merely observing to 
the ejected owner that it was fitter for him to walk in the streets than the 
Speaker of the House of Commons. 



154 RIVAL SULTANAS 

During the recess Louis XIV. received secret over- 
tures from the Duke of Buckingham, with a view to 
selling to the French King the support of his personal 
friends in the House of Commons. 

There was at this time in London a certain Marquis 
de Sessac, who, having been banished from the Court 
of France, had taken refuge in England, where, follow- 
ing the example of his compatriot Gramont, he en- 
deavoured to enrich himself by play, though Fortune 
appears to have bestowed upon him quite as many 
of her frowns as of her smiles. Among the friends 
whom he made was Buckingham, who, being badly 
in need of money, one day sent for the marquis and 
suggested that he should proceed to Versailles, obtain 
an audience of Louis, and inform him that the votes 
and influence of the Duke of Buckingham and his 
personal following would be entirely at his Majesty's 
disposal, provided the latter could see his way to 
reward their zeal in his service in a suitable manner. 

To this proposal Sessac readily agreed, seeing in it 
a chance, not only of filling his purse, but of rehabili- 
tating himself in the eyes of his Sovereign. He pro- 
ceeded secretly to Versailles, where, through the good 
offices of the Marechal de Bellefonds, he succeeded 
in obtaining an audience of the King, and handed 
him a letter from Buckingham, in which that worthy 
professed himself ready to answer for everything, 
provided he could make sure of the support of certain 
Members of Parliament, for which purpose " it would 
be necessary for the king to establish a fund in 
London." 

Buckingham had intended that Sessac's mission 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 155 

should be conducted without the knowledge of the 
French Ambassador in London or of the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, and, on his arrival at Versailles, 
the marquis had refused to see Pomponne, declaring 
that the matter on which he had come was for the 
King's ear alone. However, Colbert de Croissy was 
not long in discovering what was in the wind, and 
wrote to Louis that the House of Commons was so 
embittered against France that there was no hope 
of being able to corrupt a sufficient number of 
members " to induce this great assembly to adopt 
the resolutions which reason alone ought to dictate 
to it." He also spoke of Sessac in very uncompli- 
mentary terms and described him as a man " who liked 
to talk big and to make people imagine that he was a 
person of importance," and warned the King that, 
in encouraging Buckingham's chimerical schemes, he 
ran the risk of offending Arlington, who was on very 
bad terms with the duke. 

The hostility of the English Parliament threatened 
so much danger to Louis's plans that the King decided 
to accept Buckingham's offer, and, since Colbert de 
Croissy did not seem inclined to work harmoniously 
with that personage, he sent to England, as secret 
negotiator, the Comte de Ruvigny, with the intention 
of substituting him for Colbert a few weeks later. 

Ruvigny, who is described by Saint-Simon as " a 
worthy but simple gentleman, full of intelligence, 
sagacity, honour and probity," had had a distinguished 
military career, and was the recognized head of the 
Reformed Church in France. His family was con- 
nected by marriage with that of the Russells, and after 



156 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the Edict of Nantes, he and his two sons found an 
asylum in England, and the younger, Henri de Massue 
de Ruvigny, who for his military services was raised 
to the Irish peerage by the title of Earl of Galloway, 
commanded for a time the British forces in the 
Peninsula during the War of the Spanish Succession. 

Ruvigny was directed to delude Buckingham into 
the belief that Louis had respected his confidence, 
and that Charles II. was being kept in entire ignorance 
of his proposals ; " but his Majesty thought proper 
to inform that prince of this affair," at the same time 
that he assured the Duke of Buckingham that he would 
communicate it to no one. Louis appears to have been 
somewhat ashamed of the part he was playing, for 
Ruvigny was not allowed to take any written instruc- 
tions, but requested to read them carefully over and 
commit them to memory in the presence of Pomponne, 
and then give the paper back to the Minister. Alto- 
gether, it was, as the old soldier afterwards bluntly 
told the king, " a dirty business." 

Moreover, it did not come to anything, for it would 
appear that Buckingham had been gaily offering to sell 
at a great price the votes of a faction which, for the 
time being, had ceased to exist. 

On January 7, 1674, the Commons reassembled, more 
exasperated than ever against the Government and 
the French Alliance. To remove their suspicions, 
Charles did not hesitate to resort to the most gross and 
deliberate lying. He declared that he would lay his 
treaties with France in their completeness before a 
committee of both Houses, and he added : " I assure 
you that there is no other treaty with France, either 



LOUISE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 157 

before or since, which shall not be made known." The 
treaty which he showed was, however, the second 
Treaty of Dover — le Traite simule — which had been 
executed afresh in February, 1672, in order that Parlia- 
ment might be the better deceived. The real treaty 
of June 1, 1670 — le Traite de Madame — with the dam- 
ning articles which provided for the announcement 
of the King's conversion and Louis's subsidy for that 
purpose, remained unknown until unearthed a century 
later. 

The ruse was only partially successful, and the 
Commons proceeded to attack the " evil counsellors " 
of the King, Lauderdale, Buckingham, and Arlington 
being each in turn the object of their attention. The 
first and last contrived to parry the attack, but Buck- 
ingham fared very badly indeed. A combined assault 
was made upon him in both Houses. In the Lords, 
the trustees of the young Earl of Shrewsbury peti- 
tioned for redress, alleging that Buckingham was not 
only ostentatiously living with the countess, but that 
they had " shamelessly caused a baseborn son of theirs 
to be interred in Westminster Abbey." The supple 
Buckingham, who, in anticipation of this attack, had 
suddenly " become a great convert and, to give a 
public testimony of it, had gone with his own lady to 
St. Martin's to church in the afternoon of Sunday last," 
professed the deepest penitence and " made a very 
submissive recantation, acknowledging the miserable 
and lewd life he had led ; and, although it was a very 
heavy burden to lye under the displeasure of the House, 
yet he hath reason to give God thanks for it, since it 
had opened his eyes and discovered to him the foulness 



158 RIVAL SULTANAS 

of his past life, which he was resolved in the future 
to amend." Nevertheless, he and Lady Shrewsbury 
were bound over in the sum of ^10,000 to cease to 
cohabit. 

In the Commons, the offences alleged against him 
were mainly political. He was accused of being the 
author of the alliance with France and a promoter of 
Popery and arbitrary government. He was heard twice 
in his own defence, when he endeavoured to throw 
all the blame upon Arlington, declaring that, if his 
advice had been followed, France would not have reaped 
all the profits of the alliance, but his vindication was 
inconclusive and unsuccessful ; and the House voted 
an address to the King, praying him to remove the 
Duke of Buckingham from all employments held during 
his Majesty's pleasure and from his presence and counsels 
for ever. Any hesitations which Charles might have had 
in complying with this demand were overcome by the 
influence of Louise de Keroualle, who, as we have 
said, never forgave Buckingham for the humiliation 
he had inflicted upon her three years before and 
eagerly embraced the opportunity of revenge which 
now presented itself. 

At the beginning of February, Charles was forced 
by popular pressure to bring the barren and inglorious 
Dutch War to a close by concluding a separate peace 
with Holland. But he had no intention of breaking 
with so generous a paymaster as Louis, and in April 
prorogued Parliament at that monarch's bidding, in 
consideration of a payment of 500,000 crowns. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH AND NELL GWYN 

WHATEVER we may think of Louise de Keroualle 
— and to English people the mention of her name 
must always recall that period of disgraceful sub- 
servience to a foreign Power which is one of the 
saddest pages in our country's history — it must be 
admitted that she, at any rate, conferred a kind of 
dignity upon her dishonourable post and introduced 
something of feminine reticence and grace into the 
anarchy of the royal harem. " Alone among Charles's 
mistresses," writes one of the ablest of that monarch's 
historians, " she had a conception of la haute politique ; 
she alone in that ignoble Court could command the 
respect and co-operation of statesmen and ambassadors. 
She met the vulgar furies of the Duchess of Cleve- 
land and the banter of Nell Gwyn with quiet 
disdain ; she held her own with a certain dignity 
against the anger of the Commons, the hatred of the 
people, the attacks of politicians, and the wayward- 
ness of Charles, and for many years she was virtually 
Queen of England."* 

* Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 
159 



160 RIVAL SULTANAS 

It was a position, however, which had its draw- 
backs, and the difficulties we have indicated were not 
the only troubles with which she had to contend. 
In the spring of 1674 an enforced separation took 
place between her and the King, which appears to 
have lasted for some weeks. Its cause is very frankly 
explained by Ruvigny, who, early in January, had 
replaced Colbert de Croissy as French Ambassador, 
in one of his despatches to Pomponne ; and, austere 
Calvinist though he was, he did not hesitate to jest 
upon the matter. " She (the duchess) has been 
consoled," he writes, " for this troublesome present 
by one which is very much more to her taste. £. e 
has had a pearl necklace worth four thousand pounds 
and a diamond worth six thousand, with which she 
is so pleased that I doubt not that at the same price 
she would not object to another attack." 

Such presents were doubtless very acceptable, par- 
ticularly at a time when we learn that the clerks of 
the Treasury were refusing to pay the expenses of the 
royal seraglio ; but the separation from her royal 
lover had revived the hopes of Louise's rivals and 
exposed her, besides, to all kinds of affronts. The 
physicians had recommended the waters of Tun- 
bridge Wells, and thither she went, pursued by the 
biting jests of Nell Gwyn. Even there, however, she 
was not secure from annoyance, for when, on her 
arrival, she haughtily complained that the Marchioness 
of Worcester had occupied the house which she 
wanted herself, that dame declined to give up 
possession, and tartly reminded her that titles gained 
by prostitution were not yet regarded as valid in 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 161 

England. And, to make matters worse, she even 
reproached her with her former intimacy with the 
Comte de Sault. To soothe the injured pride of 
his mistress, the contrite Charles despatched a company 
of the Guards to bring her back in state to Windsor, 
where the Court ther was, and had her treated by 
his own physician. Nevertheless, she appears to have 
suffered a good deal in both body and mind, and 
could not refrain from reproaching the King with 
his infidelities, even in the presence of the French 
Ambassador. 

In May, Henriette de Keroualle, Louise's younger 
sj£er, arrived in England to try her fortune, and was 
immediately accorded a pension of six hundred 
pounds. The duchess had sent for Henriette with 
the object of marrying her into some great family, 
and by this means strengthening her own position 
with the English aristocracy, by whom she was 
regarded with none too much favour. The girl, 
notwithstanding the fact that she is described by 
Ruvigny as " not more than ordinarily attractive," 
soon found a husband, and in December married 
Philip Herbert, seventh Earl of Pembroke and Mont- 
gomery, a suitable dowry being provided for her out 
of the Privy Purse. 

The earl, though a very desirable match as regards 
family, was certainly not so from any other point of 
view. He was a man of rough and brutal manners 
and of the most violent temper, and when he had 
drunk to excess, which was by no means an uncommon 
occurrence, became a dangerous maniac, to whom 
prudent persons took care to give a wide berth. On 

ii 



1 62 RIVAL SULTANAS 

one occasion, we read that, when engaged in " treat- 
ing the jury " who had just given a verdict in his 
favour in an action he had brought against a relative, 
he proposed to Sir Francis Vincent, the only man who 
had had the courage to sit next him, " a small health 
of two bottles," which Sir Francis refusing to pledge, 
my lord flung one of the bottles at his head, and after- 
wards, as the baronet was getting into his coach, 
attacked him with his sword. Sir Francis, however, 
was well able to take care of himself. He disarmed 
his assailant, and then, " scorning to take the ad- 
vantage, threw away his own sword, flew at him 
fiercely, beat him, and daubed him daintily ; " and 
finished up by throwing one of the earl's footmen, 
who had presumed to interfere, into the Thames. 

Others, however, were less well able to protect them- 
selves against the murderous attacks of this high-born 
desperado than the doughty baronet. In November, 
1677, Pembroke nearly killed a man in a duel. In the 
following February, while the House of Lords was 
engaged in considering the humble petition of one 
Philip Rycaut, who represented to them that he went 
in fear of his life owing to the threats of the Earl of 
Pembroke, and besought them to protect him from 
his violence, my lord added force to the petition by 
killing a certain Nathaniel Cong in a drunken brawl 
in a Haymarket tavern. For this he was committed 
to the Tower, from which he had only recently 
emerged, having been sent there by the King as a 
punishment for " blasphemous words," and tried by 
his peers for murder. A verdict of manslaughter 
was returned, and a royal pardon followed. 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 163 

Encouraged apparently by this misplaced leniency, 
the earl continued his career of violence, and in 
August, 1680, while returning " high-flown with 
wine," with some of his friends, from a drinking-bout 
at Turnham Green, had an affray with the watch at 
Chiswick, in the course of which he ran a gentleman 
of the neighbourhood named Smeethe and a con- 
stable named Halfpenny through the body with his 
sword. Smeethe died the following day, but the 
other eventually recovered. Once again was Pem- 
broke brought to trial, but, as there appeared to be 
some doubt as to whether or no he had received 
provocation — or what so exalted a personage might 
reasonably consider provocation — he received the 
King's pardon and was discharged.* 

Henriette de Keroualle would not appear to have 
had a very happy life with her husband, which, how- 
ever, is scarcely a matter for surprise, nor did his 
lordship seem properly to have appreciated his good 
fortune in marrying a lady so closely connected with 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, although, when he was in 

* Several pamphlets were published concerning this affair, and the accounts 
given are very conflicting. One, entitled " Great and Bloody News from Turn- 
ham Green," holds Pembroke up to execration as a murderous desperado and 
calls for his exemplary punishment. Another, which purports to be " An 
Impartial Account of the Misfortune that lately happened to the Right 
Honourable the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery," ascribes all the blame 
to the presumption of Smeethe and Halfpenny ; denies that this was the twenty- 
sixth man whom his lordship had killed, " as had been impudently asserted in 
the coffee-houses," and declares that, so far from being the monster that some 
people imagined him, he differed in no wise from other men " except that he 
had more gallantry and honour and could not bear the insolent affronts of the 
Mobile without resentment." Any way, it seems to have been a very fortunate 
thing for Pembroke that he had married the sister of the King's mistress, other- 
wise it might have gone hardly with him. 

II* 



1 64 RIVAL SULTANAS 

trouble with the law, he was glad enough to avail him- 
self of his sister-in-law's good offices with the King. 
Any way, when, in September, 1675, the duchess im- 
portuned him to make an adequate provision against 
his wife's lying-in, as became a person of her 
quality, and threatened, if he refused, to complain 
to his Majesty about her sister's grievances, he 
most ungallantly replied that he would show his family 
the nation's grievance by setting her on her head at 
Charing Cross. 

Louise de Keroualle had, of course, not abandoned 
the hope of obtaining the much-desired tabouret, to 
which her ducal estate of Aubigny was able to give 
her the right, and in the spring of 1674 we find her 
approaching Louis XIV. on the matter, through 
Ruvigny, with, however, the greatest diffidence. 

" I write to Your Majesty," writes the Ambassador, 
" at the pressing instance of the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, who is very troubled, because of a misapprehen- 
sion on the part of the Marquis de Dangeau. She has 
requested him, Sir, to make known to you how much 
she has your service at heart, and how passionate is 
her desire to acquire your confidence. But, in place 
of that, she has been informed by him that he 
had requested of you the assurance of the tabouret 
for her when she should return to France. She has 
told me that there was so little likelihood of this 
return, that she does not think about it; but that, 
being still in a position to serve you, she would 
ardently desire that you should be persuaded of her 
passion to do so. I have urged her to write to Your 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 165 

Majesty; but she replied that she did not dare to do 
so, on account of the profound respect that she has 
for Your Majesty."* 

The duchess, indeed, notwithstanding the undoubted 
services which she was rendering to Louis XIV., never 
ventured to address that majestic monarch directly ; 
and the demands she made from time to time on his 
gratitude, which, it must be admitted, were modest 
enough in the circumstances — an abbey for a relative, 
some minor post under Government for a friend — came 
invariably through Ruvigny, and it was generally 
Charles II., and not the lady, who approached the 
Ambassador. Moreover, modest as were these requests, 
they were not always accorded, for Louis XIV. was not 
over fond of intervention in his affairs, and on one 
occasion, when petitioned to confer the post of syndic 
of the Estates of Brittany upon a certain M. de Calloet, 
he ignored the request altogether, but sent the duchess, 
by way of consolation, a pair of ear-rings. She received 
them " with sentiments of great respect and great grati- 
tude," and begged Ruvigny " to assure his Majesty that 
she would not omit anything in word or deed for his 
service." 

On her restoration to health, Louise de Keroualle 
speedily succeeded in recovering what ground she 
had lost by the enforced cessation of her relations with 
Charles II. and became in higher favour than ever ; 
and in the summer of 1675 she had the satisfaction of 
seeing her little son recognized by the King and created 
Duke of Richmond, that title having become vacant 
by the death of the husband of Frances Stuart. Her 

* Ruvigny to Louis XIV., March 15, 1674. 



166 RIVAL SULTANAS 

satisfaction, however, was somewhat discounted by the 
fact that the Duchess of Cleveland had also obtained 
for her second son, Henry Fitzroy, Earl of Euston, the 
title of Duke of Grafton, and demanded that he should 
have precedence over the Frenchwoman's son. The 
question of precedence, of course, depended upon the 
date of creation, and the very foundations of Charles's 
peace were shaken by the contest which ensued. He 
weakly proposed to make the creation at the same 
moment, but both ladies scorned to consent to the 
suggested compromise, and each resolved to endeavour 
to steal a march upon the other. Thanks to the friendly 
understanding which existed between her and the Lord 
Treasurer, the Earl of Danby, Louise succeeded in 
triumphing over her rival. 

" Corrupt himself and a corrupter of others," Danby, 
on becoming Lord Treasurer and chief Minister in 
June, 1673, had lost no time in making himself safe in 
a quarter where opposition was to be so much dreaded, 
and had begun by volunteering to raise the money for 
a pearl necklace and a pair of diamond pendants which 
the favourite had bought, but which the vendors 
meanly refused to deliver until the cash was forth- 
coming. Between a Minister in need of support and a 
mistress in need of money, it was easy to form an 
alliance, and thus is explained the sudden coalition 
between the two, which puzzled people at the 
time. 

The patents had been made out, each bearing the 
same date ; but they, of course, required to be sealed 
by the Lord Treasurer. Well, Danby was leaving 
London the following day for Bath, to drink the waters, 




THOMAS OSBORNE, FIRST DUKE OF LEEDS 
From an engraving by Freeman, niter a painting by Vander Vaart, 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 167 

and the Duchess of Cleveland instructed her man of 
law to wait upon the Minister with her son's patent as 
early as possible the following morning, so that there 
might be no danger of her being forestalled. Late 
that evening, however, Louise learned that Danby's 
plans had been changed, and that, instead of waiting 
until the morrow, he intended to start at midnight. 
Hastily summoning her agent, she despatched him with 
all speed to the Treasurer's house, where he arrived at 
the very moment when the Minister was getting into 
his travelling-carriage. Danby, though by no means 
pleased at an audience being demanded of him at such an 
hour, did not dare to refuse a request from the Duchess 
of Portsmouth; and the Duke of Richmond's patent 
was sealed before he set out. Early next morning 
came the Duchess of Cleveland's agent, only to find that 
he was too late ; and the fury of his employer when she 
learned how cleverly she had been jockeyed may be 
well imagined. 

At the end of the previous year, both duchesses had 
had pensions of £10,000 a year settled upon them ; 
that of the Duchess of Portsmouth was to be paid out 
of the wine-licenses ; but the Duchess of Cleveland 
preferred the Customs, as a part of the revenue less 
subject to be interfered with by Parliament. The 
latter's pension was, of course, in addition to those 
which she already enjoyed, for Charles's liberality 
towards her seemed to increase as his affection waned, 
probably with the object of bridling her rancorous 
tongue. But there was no satisfying her rapacity, and 
even the Irish treasury was laid under contribution. 
Charles actually gave her a grant of the Phcenix Park 



1 68 RIVAL SULTANAS 

in Dublin, and the design was only abandoned when 
the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Essex, protested 
against the outrage as " one of the most unscrupulous 
things I have ever known," and offered to persuade the 
Irish Parliament to levy a small tax to redeem it. 

Though not avaricious, like her predecessor in the 
royal affections, Louise's vanity produced much the same 
effects. She loved to make the enamoured King spend 
enormous sums on her whims, merely for the pleasure 
of proving her power over him. Her splendid apart- 
ments at Whitehall, situated at the southern extremity 
of the Privy Garden — the subsequent site of Richmond 
House, the London home of the second duke, her grand- 
son, and, in recent times, of Richmond Terrace — which 
caused her to be sometimes alluded to as " the lady at 
the end of the Gallery," were furnished, Evelyn tells us, 
ten times more sumptuously than those of the Queen, 
with " massy pieces of plate, and tables and stands of 
incredible value," * and were one of the sights of London, 
which people came to visit out of curiosity. 

Enviable as seemed her position, it was, as we have 
seen, not without its drawbacks ; beds of roses have 
their hidden thorns, and one of the sharpest in that 
of her Grace of Portsmouth was Nell Gwyn. It was 
necessary, both to the Frenchwoman's vanity and to 
the interests she represented, that she alone should 
possess the King's heart and be admitted to his confi- 
dence. Well, there was nothing more to fear from the 
Duchess of Cleveland, from whom his Majesty's affec- 
tions were now altogether estranged, though she con- 
tinued to reap very substantial advantages from his 

• Diary, September 10, 1675. 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 169 

former infatuation. But Nell still remained as high in 
favour as ever. The little actress, with her boisterous 
gaiety and her Cockney wit, was Charles's playmate — 
an essential part of his life — and, though Louise might 
pout and sulk as much as she pleased, no amount of 
persuasion on her part could induce him to give Nell up. 

In Pall Mall, Nell kept as " merry " a house as she 
and Lord Buckhurst had kept during that brief July 
jaunt to Epsom. There she gave boisterous supper- 
parties to " the merry gang," as her friends were called, 
at which the singing and carousing often went on until 
the small hours of the morning. To these revels the 
most prominent politicians of the day considered it a 
privilege to be invited, for both Charles and the Duke 
of York frequently honoured the company with their 
presence and appear to have enjoyed themselves hugely. 
Colley Cibber, in his " Apology," relates an amusing 
story which he had from Bowman, the singer, who 
had, when a young man, been asked to one of Nell's 
parties, together with some other professionals, to 
divert the royal brothers. When the music was over, 
the King praised it warmly. " Then, Sir," said Nell, 
" to show that you do not speak like a courtier, I hope 
you will make the performers a handsome present." 
The King, after feeling in his pockets, said he had no 
money, and asked the Duke if he had any. " I believe, 
Sir, not above a guinea or two." Upon which Nell, 
with a comical expression of astonishment, turned to 
the company. " Odd's fish ! " cried she, making bold 
with his Majesty's favourite oath, " what company am 
I got into ! " 

Nell's wit was not as a rule of the most refined 



i ;o RIVAL SULTANAS 

description, but it never failed to amuse Charles, who 
had a weakness for full-flavoured jests. One day, for 
example, when he was complaining of want of money, 
she advised him to put the Commons into a better 
humour by treating them to a French ragout, a Scotch 
collopes, and a calf's head, meaning that he should 
propitiate them by dismissing the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, Lauderdale, and Sunderland. At which, we 
are told, " his Majesty laughed and was well pleased." 

To Nell's credit, it must be said that she was 
neither rapacious like the Duchess of Cleveland, nor 
did she, like Louise de Keroualle, make the King spend 
huge sums upon her merely to gratify her vanity. 
That she was extravagant goes without saying, and 
no doubt from first to last she cost Charles a good 
round sum ; but her regular income was not more than 
£4,000 a year, and even allowing for the gifts which 
she received from him from time to time, the amount 
spent on her must have been a mere trifle compared 
with what the two duchesses managed to extract 
from both the King and the nation.* Her most 
expensive taste appears to have been a fondness for 
silver ornaments. Among the bills of hers which have 
been preserved is one dated 1674, f rom " J onn Cooqus, 
siluersmyth," in which the principal charge is one for 

* Burnet asserts, on the authority of Buckingham, that when Nell was first 
" sent for " by the King, she demanded five hundred a year, and that Charles 
refused it, but that in four years she got from him sixty thousand pounds. The 
accuracy of Burnet's statements, where his political partisanship is involved, 
is not above suspicion, while no one would attach any importance to the word 
of " all mankind's epitome." That Nell, who was a practical young woman, 
bred in a hard and sordid school, should have asked for a provision is natural 
enough ; but that Charles, who was generosity itself to his mistresses, should 
have refused so very modest a demand is highly improbable. 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 171 



making a bedstead for " y e righte Hon ble - Madame 
Guinne," with ornaments of silver, such as the King's 
head, slaves, eagles, crowns and Cupids, and Jacob 
Hall, dancing upon a rope of wirework. The bill is 
far too lengthy to give in its entirety, but some items 
from it may not be without interest for the reader : 

" Delivered the head of y e bedsteed weighing 885 onces 
12 lb. and I have received 636 onces 15 dweight so that 
their is over and above of me owne silver two hundred 
[and] forty-eight onces 17 dweight at 7s. nd. par once (y e 
silver being a d't worse par once according y e reste) £ s. d. 
wich comes to . . . . . . . . 98 10 2 

For y e making of y c 636 onces 15 d't at 2s. nd. per 

once, comes to 92 17 3 

onces dweight 



Delievred y e Kings head weighing . . 197 5 

one figure weighing 445 15 

y e other figure with y e caracter weighing . 428 5 
y e slaves and y e reste belonging unto it .255 

y e two Eagles weighing . . . .169 

one of the crowne [s] weighing ... 94 5 
y e second crowne weighing . . . 97 10 

y e third crowne weighing . . . . 90 2 

y e fowerd crowne weighing . . . 82 

one of y e Cupids weighing . . . . 121 8 

y e second boye weighing .... 101 10 
y e third boye weighing . . . . 93 * 5 

y e fowered boye weighing . . . . 88 17 

Altogether two thousand two hundred sixty five onces, 
2d wight of sterling silver at 8s. par once, comes to 

Paid for Jacob haale [Jacob Hall] dansing upon y e robbe 
[rope] of Weyer Worck ...... 

Paid to y e cabbenet maker for y e greatte bord for y e 
head of the bedstead and for the other bord that comes 
under it and . . . booring the wholles into y e head 

For y e bettering y e sodure wich was in the old bed- 
stead 



906 



5 3 7 



And so on, the total amount of the bill coming to 
£1135 3s. id.* 

* Cunningham, " The Story of Nell Gwyn." 



172 RIVAL SULTANAS 

With the mass of the people, Nell was exceedingly- 
popular. She had been so with them when she was 
on the stage, and her change of fortune seems to have 
rather increased than diminished her popularity. Nor 
is this surprising, for she was one of themselves, while 
the Duchess of Cleveland was regarded as an aristo- 
cratic harpy, battening on the nation, and Louise de 
Keroualle — or " Mrs. Carwell," as she was called by 
the populace — as a French spy. She was generous 
and free-hearted, too, almost to excess, and no one 
in genuine distress who appealed to her for assistance 
ever went empty-handed away. On one occasion, 
she saw a clergyman being haled off to prison. She 
stopped her coach and inquired the reason, and, on 
being told that he had been arrested for debt, paid 
for the poor man's liberty on the spot. As for those 
who had helped her in her early days and her 
old comrades at the King's Theatre, none of them 
was forgotten, and, what is more, she assisted them 
without any affectation of patronage. For Nell was 
far too honest to give herself the airs and graces 
assumed by the majority of queens of the left-hand, 
or to pretend that she was anything but what she was 
— a woman of the people, who had carried her charms 
to the best market available. She would seem, indeed, 
to have taken a positive pleasure in describing herself 
by a word which, in deference to the modesty of the 
modern reader, is commonly expressed by a blank. 
Thus, one day, when she found her coachman fighting 
with another man and called upon him for an ex- 
planation, she was informed that his opponent had 
had the insolence to apply the aforesaid objectionable 




1WYN WITH HER T\Y<> SONS 
engraving by Tompson. after I.ely. 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 173 

epithet to his mistress. Nell laughed good-humouredly 
and observed that she supposed the fellow was right. 

" You may be called a ," was the retort, " but I 

will not be called a 's coachman." 

Between two women, so different in every respect 
as Nell Gwyn and Louise de Keroualle, the clash 
was, of course, inevitable ; and it began from the 
moment that the latter arrived at Whitehall. For the 
haughty, high-bred Frenchwoman could not disguise 
her disdain for this noisy, ill-mannered creature from 
the London slums, who, for some inscrutable reason, 
had caught the King's fancy, and whom his Majesty 
had had the bad taste to introduce into the society 
of ladies of quality, when decency should have required 
him to keep her out of sight. Nell, as might be 
expected, was not slow to retaliate, and some of the 
shafts of ridicule which she aimed at her rival must 
have bitten pretty deep, as the following incident 
will show. 

Louise sometimes rendered herself rather absurd by 
affecting to claim relationship with various distinguished 
families in France. Thus, when, in December, 1674, 
the news of the execution of the misguided Chevalier 
de Rohan reached England,* she appeared at Court 
in deep mourning, to create the impression that she 
was a near relative of the Rohans. Next day, Nell 
also made her appearance shrouded in deepest black, 
and was asked, in the hearing of the duchess, for 

* The Chevalier de Rohan, having fallen into disgrace at Court, and finding 
himself almost ruined, had sought to better his fortunes by entering into treason- 
able negotiations with the Dutch, but was detected, brought to trial, and 
beheaded in front of the Bastille (November 27, 1674). 



174 RIVAL SULTANAS 

whom she had assumed these habiliments of woe. 
" Why ! " said she, " have you not heard of my loss 
in the death of the Cham of Tartary ? " " And 
what relation, pray," continued the questioner, " was 
the Cham of Tartary to you ? " " Oh," answered 
Nell, "exactly the same relation that the Chevalier 
de Rohan was to the Duchess of Portsmouth." This, 
we are told, was a jest after the King's own heart. 

It was indeed galling to be exposed to jests of this 
nature ; but what was the good of complaining, when 
Charles himself was the first to laugh at them. 

" Keroualle," writes Madame de Sevigne, " has been 
deceived in nothing ; she wished to be mistress of 
the King, and she is ; he passes almost every night 
with her, before the eyes of the whole Court ; she 
amasses treasures, and makes herself feared and re- 
spected by as many as she can. But she did not 
reckon to find in her way a young actress, by whom 
the King is bewitched, and she is powerless to detach 
him from her for a moment. He divides his attentions, 
his time, and his health between the two. The 
actress is as proud as the Duchess of Portsmouth ; 
she defies her ; she makes grimaces at her ; she attacks 
her, and frequently steals the King away from her, 
and boasts that she is the most loved of the two. She 
is young, reckless, bold, debauched, and of a merry 
humour. She sings, dances, and acts her part quite 
frankly. She has a son by the King, and intends to 
have him acknowledged. This is how she reasons : 
' This duchess sets up to be a person of quality ; she 
says that she is related to all the best families in 
France ; whenever any person of distinction there 



THE DUCHESS AND NELL GWYN 175 

dies, she goes into mourning. Very well ! if she be 
a person of such high station, why does she demean 
herself to be a courtesan ? She ought to die of 
shame. As for me, it is my profession ; I do not 
pretend to be anything else. The King keeps me, 
and I am faithful to him. I have a son by him, 
whom I contend that he ought to acknowledge, and 
I feel sure that he will recognize him, for he loves me 
as much as he does his Portsmouth.' This creature 
is in possession of the inner side of the pavement, and 
disconcerts and embarrasses the duchess to an extra- 
ordinary degree." 

It must not be supposed that the two ladies were 
always quarrelling, for Nell was too good-humoured 
a woman to attack any one unless under provocation ; 
while Louise had too exalted an idea of her own 
importance to engage continually in unseemly 
wrangles. Frequently they met at Whitehall on 
outwardly friendly terms, and the duchess even occa- 
sionally condescended to honour Nell's basset-table 
in Pall Mall with her presence and to win large sums 
from her rival, who, like herself, was an incorrigible 
gambler. Nevertheless, the hostility between them 
was too deep to be ever eradicated, and no one seems 
to have been deceived by this pretence of amicable 
relations. 

The rivalry of Nell Gwyn, greatly as it was resented 
by the Duchess of Portsmouth, was a source of annoy- 
ance rather than of danger to her ; and, as the little 
actress was far too feather-headed to care about 
politics, it never in any way threatened the interests 
which Louise represented. But at the beginning of 



176 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the year 1676, the duchess found herself called upon 
to face an infinitely more formidable competitor for 
the royal favour ; one against whom she was to be 
compelled to employ all the resources at her dis- 
posal. 



CHAPTER XII 

MADAME DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 

/^\N January 2, 1676, we find the French Ambassa- 
^^^ dor, Ruvigny, writing to inform Pomponne that 
" the Duchesse de Mazarin had arrived two days 
previously in London, dressed as a cavalier, accom- 
panied by two women and five men, without counting 
a little Moor, who takes his meals with her." 

Hortense Mancini, Duchesse de Mazarin, was the 
fourth of the five fair Mancini sisters,* nieces of 
Cardinal Mazarin, and the pick of the bunch as regards 
physical attractions ; in fact, she was one of the most 
beautiful women of her time. 

" Hortense eut du ciel en partage 
La grace, la beaute, l'esprit," 

sang La Fontaine, f But, if she were one of the most 

* The five sisters were : Laure, Duchesse de Mercceur (1637-1657) ; Olympe, 
Comtesse de Soissons ( 1 640-1 708) ; Marie, Constabless Colonna (1641-1715) ; 
Hortense, Duchesse de Mazarin (1 646-1 699) ; Marianne, Duchesse de 
Bouillon (1649-1680). For a full account of their careers see the author's 
" Five Fair Sisters " (London, Hutchinson ; New York, Putnam, 1906). 

f Marie Mancini speaks of her sister as a woman " whose beauty surpassed 

all imagination, and in whom one discovered each time one saw her new 

charms ; " while Saint-Evremond, who cherished for the beautiful duchess 

a boundless admiration, has left a portrait of her which sounds almost fabulous : 

177 12 



178 RIVAL SULTANAS 

beautiful, she was also one of the most extravagant, 
and few have succeeded in acquiring so much 
undesirable notoriety. 

The suitors for Hortense Mancini's hand had been 
well-nigh as numerous as those of Penelope, which 
is not surprising when it is remembered that not only 
was the girl gifted with quite extraordinary beauty, 
but that it was an open secret that her uncle, whose 
favourite niece she was, intended to bequeath her 
the bulk of his vast wealth. The Cardinal, however, 
was very hard to please, and most of them were 
very quickly sent about their business. Among those, 
however, who received more consideration at his hands 
were two future sovereigns, Pedro II. of Portugal and 
Charles II. of England. 



" She is one of those Roman beauties who in no way resemble your dolls of 
France . . . the colour of her eyes has no name ; it is neither blue, nor grey, 
nor altogether black, but a combination of all the three ; they have the sweet- 
ness of blue, the gaiety of grey, and, above all, the fire of the black . . . there 
are none in the world so sweet . . . there are none in the world so serious 
and so grave when her thoughts are occupied with any serious subject . . . 
they are large, well-set, full of fire and intelligence ... all the movements 
of her mouth are full of charm, and the strangest grimaces become her wonder- 
fully, when she imitates those who make them. Her smiles would soften the 
hardest heart and ease the most profound depression of mind ; they almost 
entirely change her expression, which is naturally haughty, and spread over 
it a certain tincture of sweetness and kindness, which reassures those hearts 
which her charms have alarmed. Her nose, which without doubt is incom- 
parably well-turned and perfectly-proportioned, imparts a noble and lofty 
air to her whole physiognomy. The tone of her voice is so harmonious and 
agreeable that none can hear her speak without being sensibly moved. Her 
complexion is so delicately clear that I cannot believe that any one who 
examined it closely can deny it to be whiter than the driven snow. Her hair 
is of a glossy black, with nothing harsh about it. To see how naturally it curls 
as soon as it is let loose, one would say it rejoiced to shade so lovely a head ; she 
has the finest turned countenance that a painter ever imagined." 




HORTENSE MANCINI, DUCHESSE DE MAZARIN 
From an engraving by Valete, after the picture by Sir Peter Lely. 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 179 

Why Mazarin refused the overtures of Pedro, then 
Regent of his future kingdom, does not appear to be 
known ; but it is not improbable that, since Portugal 
was at war with Spain, the marriage of his niece to its 
ruler might be resented by the latter country, and 
interfere with the progress of the negotiations for 
peace between France and Spain, and the marriage 
of Louis XIV. to the Infanta Maria Teresa, which 
were then in progress. 

However that may be, political considerations were 
certainly responsible for the rejection of Charles II. 's 
suit. During the conferences between Mazarin and 
the Spanish Prime Minister, Don Luis de Haro, on 
the lie des Faisans, in the autumn of 1659, Charles 
journeyed thither, in the hope of persuading France 
and Spain to assist him in an attempt to recover his 
kingdom, and, with the idea of binding the Cardinal 
to his cause and of replenishing his empty coffers, 
asked for Hortense's hand. But Mazarin was resolved 
not to break with the existing Government in Eng- 
land, so long as there was a possibility of renewed war 
with Spain ; and, besides, in common with nearly 
all Continental statesmen, he considered Charles's 
chance of recovering the throne which his father had 
forfeited a very remote one, even with foreign aid. 
And so he gracefully declined the honour, by insisting 
that, " so long as a cousin of his Majesty's (i.e., Mile, 
de Montpensier) remained unmarried, he must not 
think of a simple demoiselle."* 

* Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." Mile, de Montpensier, in her Memoires, 
says that the day after the Cardinal, having signed the peace, arrived at Saint- 
Jean-de-Luz, where the Court then was, he came to visit her, and said : " The 

12* 



180 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Could Mazarin have foreseen that, in a few months 
from that date, without a single European sovereign 
stirring a finger to help him, the King would come 
to his own again, his answer would no doubt have been 
a very different one ; and, indeed, scarcely was Charles 
seated on the throne, than the Cardinal, judging him 
to be still in need of money, sent his confidential 
agent, Bartet, to London, to offer him Hortense and 
five million livres with her. Henrietta Maria, who 
had just concluded the marriage of her daughter with 
the Due d'Orleans, showed herself very favourable 
to the Cardinal's project, and urged her son to accept 
the lady and the dowry. But Charles's position was 
growing stronger daily ; the signs of hostility which 
had at first manifested themselves in the Parliament 
and the Army had almost entirely disappeared ; while 
his counsellors were, of course, strongly opposed to 
such an alliance. And so, to the intense mortification 
of the Cardinal, the King, not, we may suppose, 
without a biting jest or two about the irony of Fate, 
declined what he had once solicited so humbly. 

When Mazarin found that his days were numbered, 
he determined to have done with kings and princes, 
and to give Hortense and her wealth to some French 
nobleman, who would assume and perpetuate his 

King of England has proposed to marry my niece Hortense. I replied that he 
did me too much honour, but, so long as there were first cousins of the King 
to marry " (meaning Mile, de Montpensier), " I must decline." Mademoiselle 
adds that she thanked him, and strongly urged him to give Hortense to the 
King of England. ... "I learned that, on the death of Cromwell, the 
Queen of England (Henrietta Maria) had made the same proposal to the 
Cardinal, who had rejected it. The last time it was M. de Turenne who made 
it. He took great interest in that which concerned the King of England." 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 181 

name; and on February 28, 1661, ten days before the 
Cardinal's death, the girl, then in her sixteenth year, 
was married to Armand Charles de la Porte, Marquis 
de la Meilleraie, Grand Master of the Artillery, 
whom Louis XIV., at his Eminence's request, imme- 
diately afterwards created a duke, by the title of Due 
de Mazarin. 

Hortense embarked upon marriage under what ap- 
peared to be the most favourable auspices. She had 
inherited the bulk of the Cardinal's vast fortune, and 
had for her residence the finest part of that won- 
derful Palais - Mazarin, filled with priceless pictures 
and the rarest marbles, and which surpassed the 
Louvre itself in the richness of its exterior. She was 
a duchess, their Majesties' cousin, courted and adulated 
by all. Finally, she was married to a man who loved 
her passionately, and for whom, at the time of her 
marriage at least, she appears to have entertained a 
strong liking. Her life ought then to have been one 
of the happiest ; the very reverse was the case. 

For this unfortunate result, Hortense herself was, 
in a great measure, to blame. Her coquetry, in- 
curable frivolity, foolishness, and complete absence 
of moral sense, were not calculated to please even the 
most complacent of husbands ; but, in justice to her, it 
should be added that even a paragon of virtue would 
have found it difficult to live on amicable terms with 
the Due de Mazarin. 

The duke was of a singularly unprepossessing 
countenance (" He bore on his face the justification 
of his wife's conduct," wrote Madame de Sevigne) ; 
but in other respects he seemed likely to make an 



i82 RIVAL SULTANAS 

excellent husband. His life, in a licentious age, had 
been beyond reproach ; he was well-educated, open- 
handed, a charming companion, and distinguished for 
his courtly manners. But some latent germ of insanity 
there must have been lurking in his temperament, 
which, under the influence of conjugal jealousy and 
religious fervour, changed him, before he had been 
married many months, into one of the most ridiculous 
and, at the same time, one of the most tyrannical 
of husbands to be met with outside the domain of 
fiction, only not mad enough to be shut up, because 
Louis XIV. found his inexhaustible purse too 
convenient to borrow from. 

" Piety," says Saint-Simon, " poisoned all the talents 
which Nature had bestowed upon him." He was the 
Alceste of good morals, but the devotees by whom 
he was surrounded made of him an Orgon. He 
threw himself into the most extravagant devotion ; 
he became a seer of visions, a dreamer of dreams.* 
He conceived the most unheard-of scruples, and did 
not hesitate to give expression to them. The mag- 
nificent collection of paintings and statues in the 
Palais-Mazarin shocked his views, nor did he content 
himself, like Tartuffe, with throwing his handkerchief 
over the Michaelangelos and Titians which offended 
him by an improper nudity ; but, with a hammer in 
one hand and a paint-pot in the other, made a tour 
of the galleries, demolishing the statues and smearing 

* One day, he demanded an audience of Louis XIV., and gravely told him 
that he had been informed by the Angel Gabriel that some terrible misfortune 
would befall his Majesty, if he did not immediately break off his connection 
with Louise de la Valliere. 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 183 

over the pictures. He issued an order forbidding the 
women and girls on his estates to milk the cows, such 
an operation being, in his opinion, a most indelicate 
one for a woman to undertake ; and was only with 
difficulty dissuaded from having his daughters' teeth 
extracted, because, being pretty, he feared that they 
might become vain. 

" He used to cast lots for his servants," says Saint- 
Simon, " in such a way that the cook became his 
intendant and the floor-scrubber his secretary. The 
lot, according to him, indicated the will of God." The 
same chronicler relates that once, when a fire broke 
out at one of his country-seats, he refused to allow the 
servants to extinguish it, declaring that to do so would 
be to interfere with the intentions of the Almighty. 

But it was his unfortunate young wife who had to 
bear the brunt of his vagaries. If we are to believe 
only half of what she tells us in her Memoires, he 
must have led her a truly terrible life. He was jealous 
of everyone who addressed or approached her, high or 
low, man or woman. " I could not speak to a servant, 
but he was dismissed the same day. I could not 
receive two visits in succession from the same man, 
but he was forbidden the house. If I showed any 
preference for one of my maids, she was at once taken 
away from me. He would have liked me to see no one 
in the world, except himself. Above all, he could 
not endure that I should see either his relations or 
my own — the latter, because they had begun to take 
my part ; his own, because they no more approved 
of his conduct than did mine." He found fault with 
everything she did, and the innocence of her recreations 



1 84 RIVAL SULTANAS 

occasioned him as much annoyance as if they had been 
criminal.* 

The duchess, according to her own account, bore 
her husband's eccentricities with exemplary patience ; 
but when she found on her return from some Court 
function that M. de Mazarin had taken advantage 
of her absence to seize upon her jewels, her fortitude 
was exhausted and she appealed to her relatives for 
protection. Alternate separations and reconciliations 
between the ill-assorted couple ended in an open 
rupture, and in 1666 the duchess brought an action 
for judicial separation against her husband before the 
Cour des Enquetes of the Parliament of Paris. 

While awaiting the result of the trial, the lady con- 
sented to retire to the Abbey of Chelles, from which, 
however, her husband, fearing that she was enjoying 
too much liberty, obtained permission from the King 
to remove her to the Couvent des Filles de Sainte- 
Marie, near the Bastille, a most rigorous institution. 
Here she found a companion in misfortune in the person 
of Sidonie de Lenoncourt, Marquise de Courcelles, and 
the two penitents appear to have led the poor nuns 
such a life with their practical jokes that the latter 
petitioned the King for their removal, f and Madame 
de Mazarin, much to her relief, was sent back to Chelles. 

* Memoires de la duchesse de Mazarin. 

■(• Madame de Mazarin in her Memoires, however, declares that they were 
shamefully maligned. " As Madame de Courcelles was very amiable and very 
entertaining," she writes, " I had the complacency to join with her in some 
pleasantries which she played upon the nuns. A hundred ridiculous tales 
about this were carried to the King, who was told that we put ink in the holy- 
water basin to bespatter the good ladies, that we ran through the dormitories, 
accompanied by a pack of dogs, shouting out : Tayaut ! Tayaut ! and such 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 185 

M. de Mazarin, accompanied by a troop of cavalry, and 
armed with an authorization from the Archbishop of 
Paris, attempted to enter the convent and seize his wife ; 
but the abbess refused him admission, and a decree 
of the Cour des Enquetes decreed that the duchess 
should be set at liberty and reinstated in the Palais- 
Mazarin, while her husband was to reside at the 
Arsenal, the official residence of the Grand Master 
of the Artillery. The duke, however, refused to accept 
this decree, and immediately appealed to the Grande 
Chambre ; and Madame de Mazarin, fearing that the day 
might go against her, and that she would be condemned 
to return to her detested husband, decided to leave 
France. Her brother, the Due de Nevers, and the 
Chevalier de Rohan,* who passed for her lover, aided 
her in this project, and on June 13, 1668, disguised as a 
man and accompanied by one of her waiting-women, 
similarly attired, and an equerry of the chevalier named 
Couberville, she left Paris on horseback, and rode with- 
out drawing rein, except to change horses, to Nancy. 
Here she was well received by Charles IV. of Lorraine, 
who, ever the slave of the fair, naturally sympathized 
with her misfortunes, and gave her a troop of horse to 
escort her as far as Geneva. Finally, at the beginning 

like things, all of which were absurdly false or grossly exaggerated. For 
example, having asked for some water to wash our feet, the nuns disapproved 
and refused our request, just as if we were there to observe the regulations. 
It is true that we filled a large coffer which stood in our dormitory with water, 
and, the boards of the floor being very loosely joined together, the water which 
overflowed leaked through the wretched floor and wetted the beds of the good 
sisters. This accident was talked about as if it had been something which we 
had done of design." 

* See p. 173 supra. 



1 86 RIVAL SULTANAS 

of July, still escorted by Couberville, she arrived at 
Milan, where she found her sister Marie, and the latter's 
husband, the Constable Colonna, who, warned of her 
coming, had travelled thither to meet her. 

At Milan, the duchess, to the surprise of her relatives, 
evinced a singular dislike for society, remaining in her 
apartments all day, and seeing no one but her sister 
and her immediate attendants ; but their surprise gave 
way to anger and mortification when it presently tran- 
spired that the reason for this sudden taste for solitude 
was a violent passion which the lady had conceived 
for Couberville. Soon this affair had become the talk 
of the city, and people made ribald verses about it, 
to the intense disgust of the Colonnas and the Due de 
Nevers, who had lately arrived at Milan. In conse- 
quence, they cut short their stay at Milan and removed 
to Sienna, and thence to Rome. Here, Madame de 
Mazarin, indignant at the remonstrances of her relatives 
and at the manner in which they had treated Couber- 
ville, who, on some pretext, had been arrested by order 
of the Constable Colonna and imprisoned in a fortress, 
left the Casa Colonna and went to live with her aunt, 
Signora Martinozzi. Learning, however, that the Due 
de Mazarin was petitioning the Pope to have her sent 
to a convent, she anticipated him by retiring to the 
Convent of Campo-Marzo, of which another of her 
aunts was the Superior, and where she could reckon 
on being allowed to do pretty much as she pleased. 
She had not been there long, however, when she fell 
into " a state of profound melancholy," and confessed 
to her sister Marie, who visited her nearly every day, 
that an interesting event, in which M. de Mazarin had 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 187 

certainly no concern, was pending. The situation was 
most embarrassing, as Hortense could not leave the 
convent without the consent of her husband or the 
Pope ; and they were at a loss what to do. Eventually, 
however, Marie solved the problem by aiding her sister 
to escape, and bearing her off in her coach, before the 
eyes of the indignant nun,* to the Palazzo Mancini, 
which had been bequeathed by Mazarin to the Due de 
Nevers, though their uncle, the Cardinal Mancini, 
was at present residing there. 

This unfortunate termination to her romance with 
Couberville does not appear to have had a very chasten- 
ing effect upon the volatile duchess, who, to the morti- 
fication of her friends, declined to make the least attempt 
to conceal her condition, went frequently into society, 
and appeared extremely pleased with herself. At the 
fetes which followed the election of Cardinal Rospi- 
gliosi (Clement X.) Pope, in the spring of 1670, she 
was among the gayest of the gay, and was perpetually 
surrounded by a crowd of adorers, who contended for 
the first place in her favours with so much acrimony 
that on more than one occasion a duel was with 
difficulty prevented. 

In the autumn, the Due de Nevers, who had been 
residing in Rome since the previous winter, set out on 
his return to France, and Madame de Mazarin, who was, 
perhaps, beginning to find the welcome which her 
friends had at first extended to her growing a trifle cold, 
and was, besides, in need of money — she had been, she 

* " My old aunt [the abbess]," writes Madame de Mazarin, " took the matter 
so much to heart that she died a few days later of the grief which my escape 
had occasioned her." 



1 88 RIVAL SULTANAS 

tells us, " reduced to pawn her jewels for the means of 
subsistence " — decided to accompany him and " throw 
herself at M. de Mazarin's feet." But her career at 
Rome, rumours of which had not failed to reach Paris, 
had been scarcely calculated to promote a reconcilia- 
tion ; and an attempt on the part of M. de Mazarin 
to have her arrested en route, in virtue of a decree which 
he had obtained from the Grande Chambre, was only 
frustrated by the arrival of a courier from the King 
ordering the enraged husband to sign a truce with his 
wife. His Majesty subsequently offered her the choice 
of two alternatives : either to return to the domestic 
roof, or liberty to reside in Rome, with a pension of 
twenty-four thousand livres, which he would order 
M. de Mazarin to pay her. An income of twenty- 
four thousand livres seemed a miserable pittance to a 
woman who had inherited so many millions ; but even 
that seemed preferable to a tUe-a-tete with the duke. 
Accordingly, she informed the King that she felt that 
it would be impossible for her to return to M. de 
Mazarin " after all the endeavours he had made to ruin 
her reputation," and at the beginning of the spring of 
1 67 1, set out for Italy. 

The Duchesse de Mazarin's second sojourn at Rome 
lasted some twelve months. At the end of that time 
her sister Marie, whose relations with her husband, the 
Constable Colonna, were now so strained that she 
suspected him, not, it would seem, without a strong 
appearance of probability, of a design to have her 
poisoned, begged her to aid her to escape to France, 
where her old admirer Louis XIV. had offered her an 
asylum. The duchess consented, and in the last days 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 189 

of May, 1672, the two ladies, taking advantage of the 
Constable's temporary absence from Rome, made their 
way to a spot on the coast near Civita Vecchia, where 
they hired a Neapolitan felucca, which, escaping by 
good fortune the galleys which the enraged Constable 
had sent in pursuit, landed them safely at Ciotat, in 
Provence. 

From Ciotat the adventurous dames, whose arrival 
had created a great sensation, proceeded to Marseilles, 
and thence to Aix, where the Comtesse de Grignan, 
wife of the King's lieutenant in Provence, supplied some 
of the deficiencies in their wardrobe, and wrote to her 
mother, Madame de Sevigne, that " they were travelling 
like true heroines of romance with a great many jewels 
^and no linen." After a stay of a few days, they left 
Aix, with the intention of proceeding to Paris, but, on 
reaching Pont-Saint-Esprit, they learned that a party 
of soldiers, sent by the Due de Mazarin, were approach- 
ing to arrest the duchess, against whom the decree of 
the Grande Chambre already mentioned was still in 
force. This alarming intelligence caused Madame de 
Mazarin to part company with her sister, and that same 
night she took the road for Savoy, whose ruler, Charles 
Emmanuel II., had once been a suitor for her hand, 
and had treated her with so much courtesy when she 
passed through Turin, on her way to Italy the previous 
year, that she had resolved to take up her residence in 
his territories, if ever she quitted Rome. 

Charles Emmanuel welcomed the fair fugitive in the 
most cordial manner, and installed her in the ducal 
chateau at Chambery, where his generosity enabled her 
to maintain a semi-royal state, and to gather around her 



190 RIVAL SULTANAS 

a little Court, composed of the nobility and high officials 
of the province. The duke invited her to his hunting- 
parties, entertained her magnificently at his country- 
residence, and occasionally came to pay her homage 
at Chambery. As for her husband, she troubled very 
little about him, except to apply to him for the payment 
of the pension of 24,000 livres, which Louis XIV. had 
promised her, and which seems to have been occasionally 
in arrears, since, in September, 1672, we find her writing 
to the King, begging him to command M. de Mazarin 
to disgorge without further delay, and " not to reduce 
her to the extremity of not knowing where to lay her 
head." 

Needless to observe, Madame de Mazarin did not 
content herself with the admiration of the Duke of 
Savoy, and the most favoured of her adorers was the 
young historian Cesar Vichard, who called himself the 
Abbe de Saint-Real, although he had neither tonsure 
nor benefice.* Saint-Real took up his residence at the 
chateau in the capacity of the duchess's reader, and 
" had the honour to converse with her every day and 
to read to her French and Italian books." 

In the summer of 1675, Charles Emmanuel of Savoy 
died, and the widowed duchess, who had regarded her 
husband's attentions to the fair exile at Chambery 

* Saint-Rial, who was the author of P Usage de I'Histoire, Nouvelle bistorique 
de Don Carlos, la Conspiration de Venise, and other works, was an erudite and 
charming writer ; but under the influence of Varillas, then at the height of 
his reputation, he contracted the habit of " embellishing history and of seeking 
in the fecundity of his imagination resources against the sterility of events." 
It has been concluded a little too easily that he was the author of Madame de 
Mazarin's Memoires, and they have been included in editions of his works. 
Most probably, he merely assisted in their compilation. 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 191 

with the strongest disapproval, lost no time in intimat- 
ing to that lady that she must look elsewhere for an 
asylum. Madame de Mazarin, accordingly, quitted 
Chambery, travelled through Switzerland, Germany, 
and Holland, " on horseback, and wearing a plumed 
hat and a peruke," according to her former ally the 
Marquise de Courcelles, and reached Amsterdam, where 
she embarked for England. 

It has been pretended that this journey had a poli- 
tical end, and that the leaders of the Country party had 
invited to England the woman whom rumour credited 
with being the most beautiful of her time, and who was 
well-known to be greatly irritated against the Court 
of France, in order to oppose her to the reigning siren. 
It would, however, appear more probable that the fact 
that the Duchess of York was her kinswoman and that 
she was, in consequence, sure of a welcome at 
Whitehall, had been her principal reason for choosing 
England. 

Madame de Mazarin landed at Torbay and rode on 
horseback to London, " en habit ie cavalier." Among 
her suite was the Abbe de Saint-Real, who was still high 
in his patroness's favour. In London she was welcomed 
as a conqueror. " The Duke of York," writes Ruvigny 
to Pomponne, " received at his house yesterday the 
Duchesse de Mazarin, who received, at the same time, the 
compliments of the King of England through the Earl 
of Sunderland. Every one here is in expectation of 
some important change, and it is believed that a lady so 
extolled cannot fail to be the cause of adventures. M. de 
Gramont, who has undertaken the care of this lady's 
conduct, considers her as beautiful as ever. For myself, 



192 RIVAL SULTANAS 

who have not seen her since the first days of her mar- 
riage, and who have retained the recollection of what 
she was then like, I have observed some alteration, which, 
however, does not prevent her from being more beau- 
tiful than any one in England. . . . She has made her 
entrance into the Court of England like Armide into 
the camp of Godefroy. People talk of her everywhere, 
the men with admiration, the women with jealousy and 
uneasiness."* 

Nell Gwyn went into mourning, in ironical anticipa- 
tion of the fall of the Duchess of Portsmouth ; the 
enemies of that lady, private and political, made no 
secret of their joy at the advent of this triumphant 
beauty, who, though a subject herself of the Crown of 
France, was, they confidently hoped, destined to ruin 
French influence at Whitehall ; the poet Waller cele- 
brated the coming struggle for supremacy in some of 
his most finished verses ; f and the Duchess of Cleve- 
land followed in anticipation the advice which Saint- 

* Despatch of January 6, 1676, cited by Forneron, Louise de Keroualle. 

f " When through the world fair Mazarin had run, 
Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun, 
Hither at length the Roman eagle flies, 
As the last triumph of her conquering eyes, 
As heir to Julius, she may pretend 
A second time to make this nation bend ; 
But Portsmouth, springing from the ancient race 
Of Britons, which the Saxon here did chase, 
As they great Caesar did oppose, makes head, 
And does against this new invader lead ; 
***** 

Dressed to advantage, this illustrious pair 
Arrived, for combat in the list appear. 
What may the fates design ! for never yet 
From distant regions two such beauties met." 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 193 

Evremond tendered the beauties of the Court in the 
funeral panegyric which he wrote upon his idol, and had 
the satisfaction of reading to her when she was in the 
best of health,* by retiring to Paris, whence it was 
presently reported that she was consoling herself for the 
loss of Charles II. 's affection by making a conquest of 
Harlay de Chanvallon, Archbishop of Paris. | 

The Duchess of Portsmouth was under no mis- 
apprehension as to the danger which menaced her 
from so redoubtable a rival, and did not hesitate to 
solicit the assistance of the Court of France to defend 
their common interests. At the end of February, 
Ruvigny reported to Pomponne that " her jealousy 
permitted her so little rest that she was greatly 
changed ; " and early in April she had a miscarriage 
which prostrated her for some time. 

In the autumn she followed the Court to New- 
market ; but there was a great contrast between the 
deference paid her on this occasion and in previous 
years. For, on arriving there, she found, to her 
mortification, that the King had omitted to find her 
a lodging, and she was obliged to hire a house in an 
adjoining village, which deprived her of the opportunity 
of seeing his Majesty as often as she would have 

* " Fair beauties of Whitehall, give way, 
Hortensia does her charms display ; 
She comes, she comes ! resign the day — 
She must reign, and you obey." 
•f And it is quite probable that the report was well-founded, since the arch- 
bishop was at this stage of his career very far from being an example for his 
clergy to follow, and had tender relations with a certain Madame de Breton- 
villiers, upon whom the wits of Paris bestowed the name of " la Cathedrale." 
For a further account of the amours of this prelate, see Bussy-Rabutin, vol. v. 
p. 39 and appendix, and Revue retrospective, vol. i. p. 165. 

13 



i 9 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

wished. Her financial affairs were also in an un- 
satisfactory condition, her steward having pawned a 
considerable portion of her jewellery, which she had 
entrusted to his care, for over twelve thousand pounds, 
and made away with the money. 

Money difficulties were also causing Madame de 
Mazarin anxiety, but with that lady, who had not as 
yet the King's purse to draw upon, they were much 
more serious. Sorely against her will — for she 
naturally desired at the beginning of her campaign 
against the reigning favourite to avoid all suspicion 
of being actuated by mercenary motives — she was 
obliged to inform Charles II. of her distress. But she 
was too astute to ask him for assistance, and merely 
requested him to use his good offices with Louis XIV. 
to obtain for her an increase of the pension which 
she was receiving from her husband. Charles readily 
consented, and wrote to Louis, asking him to persuade 
M. de Mazarin to increase the pension from twenty- 
four thousand to sixty thousand livres ; and, at the 
same time, charged the French Ambassador to inform 
his master that " he would be very sensible of this 
favour, without which it would be impossible for the 
lady to exist." 

Louis XIV. found himself in a somewhat difficult 
position. He did not wish to disoblige Charles II., 
or to irritate a woman who might soon replace the 
Duchess of Portsmouth in that monarch's affections, 
by a refusal. But, on the other hand, he disliked 
interfering in family matters, and did not consider 
that he was justified in compelling one of his sub- 
jects, to whom he was under considerable financial 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 195 

obligations, to disgorge a large sum of money in order 
to enable his wife to bring more discredit on his name 
than she had already done. He finally decided to 
write to Madame de Mazarin with his own hand to 
inform her that he judged it best not to intervene 
in the matter. 

Ruvigny, who handed the letter to Madame de 
Mazarin, reported that she had shown " great dis- 
pleasure at seeing herself abandoned in a Court where 
money was very necessary," adding that he had ascer- 
tained that Charles II. had secretly given her a 
thousand pounds, a present which he feared would 
have very troublesome consequences for the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, as it was not unlikely to pave the 
way for more intimate relations between the donor 
and the recipient. He was of opinion that it would 
be very impolitic to offend the lady, by a con- 
tinued refusal to bring pressure to bear upon M. de 
Mazarin, as her importance was steadily increasing, 
and she had many influential friends at the English 
Court. 

All the Court, indeed, appeared to be on the side 
of the new comer against Louise de Keroualle, fore- 
most among them being her young kinswoman, Mary 
of Modena, who had lately married the Duke of York, 
and with whom she had been staying at St. James's 
Palace since her arrival in England. Compelled to 
keep her bed on account of her pregnancy, nothing 
would content this princess but that Madame de 
Mazarin should be with her nearly the entire day, and, 
as the King happened to be very assiduous in his 
attentions to his sister-in-law and paid her long and 

13* 



196 RIVAL SULTANAS 

frequent visits, the beautiful Italian had abundant 
opportunities of ingratiating herself with his Majesty. 
Ruvigny acquits the Duchess of York of any intention 
of throwing the lady in the King's way, but declares 
that there are people who attach great significance to 
these constant meetings, and that there is a rumour 
that Madame de Mazarin is to be given a lodging at 
Whitehall. 

The excellent Ruvigny found himself quite out of 
place in the midst of intrigues of this kind. He had 
accepted the post of Ambassador to England in the 
belief that he was to conduct political negotiations, 
and here he was required to combat the designs of 
a woman upon the inflammable heart of the Sovereign 
to whom he was accredited. It was a task altogether 
beyond his capacity. " Sire," he writes, " I have 
just ascertained that there is a certain and very secret 
understanding between the King of England and 
Madame de Mazarin. She is behaving so slyly that 
the persons who intended to meddle with this affair 
have no share in it." He urges the King to obtain 
an increase of Madame de Mazarin's pension from 
her husband. " Charles II. and his brother press 
me earnestly to make known to your Majesty the senti- 
ments of affection and compassion that they have for 
the interests of the duchess, and have expressly ordered 
me to assure you, Sire, that you will give them a very 
sensible pleasure and one deserving of their gratitude 
if it pleases you to consider their intercession. They 
have been touched by the first refusal, and they hope 
that your Majesty will not refuse their second 
appeal." And he adds : " It seems to me that the 




HOXORE COURTIN 
From an engraving dated 1668, after a painting by Nanteuil. 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 197 

King of England takes the interests of this lady more 
to heart than he did at the beginning, and that with 
time he might very well conceive a passion for her." 

Louis XIV. perceived that the old Calvinist, how- 
ever competent to deal with ordinary diplomatic 
situations, was not the kind of man who could be 
trusted to checkmate feminine machinations, and he 
therefore sent to co-operate with him, and, at the 
end of some weeks, to replace him altogether, a very 
different kind of diplomatist, in the person of Honore 
Courtin. 

Honore Courtin, Seigneur de Chanteraine, who 
arrived in London in May, 1676, was a former coun- 
sellor of the Parlement and intendant of Picardy, 
who had won his way into the favour and confidence 
of Louis XIV. by the possession of qualities not often 
found in conjunction. He was at once the most 
polished of courtiers and the most modest and dis- 
interested of men, and combined with remarkable 
sagacity and shrewdness an unimpeachable honesty. 
In appearance, he was a very little man, whose wit, 
good-humour, and charming manners made him the 
most agreeable of companions, and who, Saint-Simon 
tells us, had been in his youth — he was now forty- 
eight — a great favourite with the ladies. Louis XIV. 
held him in the highest esteem, and occasionally 
honoured him by an invitation to Marly, the only 
" man of the robe " who enjoyed this highly-coveted 
privilege. 

Courtin was no stranger to Whitehall, having spent 
some months in London on a diplomatic mission ten 
years earlier. However, a great deal of water had 



198 RIVAL SULTANAS 

flowed under London Bridge since then, and, before 
starting for England, he judged it advisable to gather 
as much information as possible about the present 
state of Charles II.'s Court. With this object, he 
paid a visit to a former maid-of-honour of Catherine 
of Braganza — he does not tell us her name — who, having 
had the misfortune to be concerned in an interesting 
domestic event within the precincts of the palace, had 
been dismissed from her post and had retired to Paris, 
where she was now residing as a ftensionnaire in the 
Abbaye de Panthemont, in the Faubourg Saint- 
Germain. From this lady he doubtless gleaned some 
very useful details about his Britannic Majesty's love- 
affairs, and, any way, he appears to have been much 
pleased with his informant, whom he describes, in a 
letter to Louvois, as " as good merchandise as I have 
seen for a long time," adding that " if he had plenty 
of money and many affairs, as he (Louvois) had, she 
should not escape him." 

Courtin came to England bearing a proposal from 
the Due de Mazarin to his wife that she should return 
to France and retire for a season into the Abbey of 
Montmartre ; but the lady, who had had quite 
enough of convents, naturally preferred to remain 
where she was. The new Ambassador paid Madame 
de Mazarin several visits and observed her closely, and 
had more than one conversation with the Abbe de 
Saint-Real, with the result that he arrived at the same 
conclusion as his predecessor had done, namely, that it 
would be distinctly advisable for Louis XIV. to compel 
her husband to accede to her demands, as she was 



MME. DE MAZARIN ENTERS THE LISTS 199 

under the impression that his Majesty was prejudiced 
against her, " so that it is to be feared, if she obtains 
any influence here, that she will not employ it as your 
Majesty might desire." * 

That Madame de Mazarin would obtain this influence 
appeared only too probable. Courtin did not hesitate 
to interrogate Charles II. on this very delicate subject, 
and that monarch, without apparently being the least 
offended or embarrassed by such a question, replied 
that " he had much affection for her, but that he 
should not allow himself to be won over by the 
cabals which were being formed to entangle him with 
her." The Ambassador, however, was frankly sceptical 
about his Majesty's powers of resistance. The lady 
was so beautiful, he told Louis XIV. ; the King con- 
versed with her more willingly than with any one ; 
every one about his person was continually chanting 
her praises ; while, on the other hand, the Duchess 
Oi. Portsmouth had hardly a friend in the whole Court, 
and was, moreover, in bad health, and, in consequence, 
had for the time being lost her good looks. And, if 
Charles were to yield to temptation and to substitute 
the Italian for the Frenchwoman as his chief sultana, 
the consequences, from a political point of view, might 
be most serious for France. Danby, as they very 
well knew, although he had allowed himself to be 
drawn by Louise de Keroualle, and by the secret 
negotiations with France, in which Charles II. had 
taken care to compromise him, into the French party, 
and had reluctantly consented to the prorogation of 
Parliament for fifteen months, which Louis XIV. had 

* Courtin to Louis XIV., June 8, 1676, in Forneron. 



200 RIVAL SULTANAS 

procured from the King of England, in return for a 
present of two and a half million livres (February 
1 6, 1676), was in reality anxious to counteract French 
aggrandizement and to secure for England an influential 
place in the councils of Europe. With the Duchess 
of Portsmouth replaced by a woman, incensed against 
the Court of France by the scant consideration which 
she had received at its hands, the principal obstacle to 
Danby's adopting an anti-French policy would be 
removed, and they might have to combat at the same 
time the Minister and the mistress. 

" It matters very little to your Majesty," writes 
Courtin, " that the Duchesse de Mazarin does not live 
with her husband and that she receives fifty thousand 
livres from him for her expenses ; but it matters much 
to you, in the present conjunction, that England does 
not join your enemies. England hates us more and 
more ; yesterday the people wanted to throw the 
resident of Venice into the river, under the impression 
that he was a Frenchman. We must withdraw from 
here, at any cost, a woman whom we have so much 
cause to fear, both on account of her beauty and her 
resentment. ... It will be a miracle if the King of 
England does not allow himself to be captured ; he 
is besieged from all sides." 



CHAPTER XIII 

TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 

TjMJLLY alive as he was to the danger of the situa- 
tion, Courtin was resolved to leave no means 
untried to avert the threatened surrender of Charles II. 
to the charms of Madame de Mazarin. He began by 
writing to that lady's husband and sought to inflame 
his jealousy. He pointed out that his wife was far too 
agreeably lodged at St. James's Palace to have any 
inclination to exchange her luxurious apartments there 
for the rigour of the cloister, but suggested that, 
although, in the present state of things, " she would 
not promise to allow him to enjoy the liberties which 
marriage authorised," the offer of a pension of fifty 
thousand livres, together with the restoration of her 
jewels and furniture, might induce her to return to the 
Palais-Mazarin. " She is resolved," he adds, " not to 
establish herself at Whitehall, that is to say, in the 
King's palace ; but when she is in need of anything, I 
assure you, Monsieur, she will find here people who 
will assist her willingly." 

This epistle, however, did not have the result which 
the writer had anticipated ; and the duke replied in 
201 



202 RIVAL SULTANAS 

an unctuous letter eight pages in length, in which 
he detailed all the reasons which ought to persuade 
his errant consort that the seclusion of a convent was 
the most suitable residence for her. Failing in this 
quarter, the Ambassador set to work upon the Abbe 
de Saint-Real, who gave promise of being more manage- 
able, since it was apparent to every one that he was the 
victim of a devouring jealousy. " He had always, in 
the house, the air of an unhappy lover, remaining all 
alone in a corner of the fireplace in the room next the 
cabinet in which cards were being played, and speaking 
to no one." Courtin represented to him that, if he 
desired to retain Madame de Mazarin's waning affections, 
the only course open to him was to persuade her to 
leave a city where she was surrounded by so many 
temptations ; and this the abbe promised to do. 
However, in the middle of October, to the great 
mortification of Courtin, Saint-Real, without giving 
him any warning of his intention, suddenly took his 
departure from England. " I believe," writes the 
Ambassador, in reply to Louvois's inquiries, " that 
vexation at seeing Madame de Mazarin always sur- 
rounded by people who prevented him from conversing 
with her as comfortably as he did at Chambery caused 
him to take a violent resolution, of which I am sure 
that he repented many times before reaching Dover. 
Madame de Mazarin has sustained his departure with 
the fortitude of a Roman matron, and, to speak of 
things as they are, I am greatly deceived if she is 
not very pleased at being delivered from him." 

At the end of May, 1676, the Duchess of Portsmouth 
left London for Bath, where she remained until the 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 203 

beginning of July. On her return journey, she stopped 
at Windsor, where the Court then was, to dine with 
Charles, but, not being offered accommodation in the 
Castle, was obliged to go on to London to sleep. " I 
intend to arm myself from head to foot," observed 
Nell Gywn, on hearing of the return of her rival, 
" to protect myself against the resentment which the 
frequent visits the King has paid me during her absence 
must have caused her." Courtin reported that the 
duchess had benefited by her visit to Bath, though she 
was still a little thin. However, she hoped that rest 
would soon enable her " to re-establish her embon- 
point." 

A few days later, the King having returned from 
Windsor, the duchess gave a grand dinner-party in 
honour of the French Ambassador. The musicians 
of the Chamber of Louis XIV., who were then touring 
in England, played during the meal, and Charles II. 
came to listen to them. Louise requested the 
musicians to play the air : Mate me con mirar, mas 
no me mate con zelos (" Make me die of grief, but 
not of jealousy "), at which there was a little laughter 
in which his Majesty joined. The King in public 
paid the favourite every possible attention, but he 
never visited her apartments alone, and it was the 
general belief that their relations had ceased to be 
on a tender footing. To add to her troubles, the 
Duchess of Portsmouth had the misfortune to injure 
one of her eyes, which was black and swollen for several 
days, upon which the wits declared that she wished to 
transform herself from a blonde into a brunette and 
have black eyes like Madame de Mazarin. 



20 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Matters were looking serious for the Duchess of 
Portsmouth. After a reign of six years, it seemed as 
though her fall was close at hand. She herself, bravely 
as she continued the struggle, felt that she was being 
worsted, and during a visit which Courtin paid her 
gave way for a moment to despair. 

" I witnessed yesterday evening," writes the Am- 
bassador to Louvois under date August 6, " an incident 
which aroused in me the greatest pity imaginable, and 
which would perhaps have touched you, all wise and 
virtuous though you are. I went to Madame de Ports- 
mouth's apartments. She opened her heart to me, in 
the presence of two of her waiting-maids, of whom 
you perhaps know one, named Ballex, who was 
formerly in the service of the Comtesse du Plessis. 
These two maids remained glued against the wall, 
with downcast eyes. The mistress shed a torrent of 
tears ; and her sighs and sobs interrupted her words. 
In short, never has a spectacle appeared to me more 
sad or more touching. I remained with her until mid- 
night, and I neglected nothing to restore her courage 
and to make her understand how much it was to her 
interest to dissemble her grief." 

" The scene of the signora adobranda" replies 
Louvois, " has rather diverted his Majesty. I am 
sure that she has very much entertained you first." 
But what afforded Louis XIV. and his Minister 
material for cynical amusement was, nevertheless, 
politically a very serious matter. The fall of Louise 
de Keroualle would undoubtedly be regarded by 
foreign Courts as a proof of the weakening of French 
influence over Charles II. ; and this might very well 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 205 

have a most disastrous effect upon the negotiations 
then in progress at Nimwegen and prevent the Dutch 
from severing themselves from their allies and con- 
cluding a separate peace with France, which was the 
main object of Louis XIV.'s diplomacy at that 
moment. It was above all things necessary, there- 
fore, to persuade the Continental Powers that the 
Duchess of Portsmouth was still in a position to support 
the policy of France ; and the French plenipotentiaries 
at the Congress were instructed that both the health 
and the credit of the lady with Charles II. remained 
unimpaired. " The Duchess of Portsmouth," wrote 
Courtin, " has returned from the waters in better 
health than when she left to visit them ; the King 
went to meet her, which shows that he still retains 
the same sentiments towards her." 

But while the Ambassador was sending these com- 
forting assurances to Nimwegen, his despatches to 
Versailles contained the most disquieting information 
as to the progress which Madame de Mazarin was 
making in the good graces of Charles II. 

The little Countess of Sussex, the elder of the 
King's daughters by the Duchess of Cleveland, had 
formed a great attachment for the beautiful and ro- 
mantic Italian, who had won her affections by entering 
heart and soul into her childish amusements, and, as 
her playmate, became necessarily a constant visitor to 
her apartments. This intimacy, though not at all to 
the taste of the Earl of Sussex, was encouraged by 
Charles, for, on the departure of the Duchess of Cleve- 
land for France, her daughter had been installed in 
the apartments at Whitehall which that lady had 



206 RIVAL SULTANAS 

occupied at the height of her favour ; and, as these 
were situated immediately above those of the King, 
with which they were connected by means of a private 
staircase, his Majesty was able to visit them as often 
as he pleased without being observed. However, if 
the King's visits passed unperceived, those of Madame 
de Mazarin did not, and from their length and fre- 
quency people did not fail to draw their own con- 
clusions. " Madame de Mazarin is there at all hours," 
writes Courtin towards the end of July ; " she even 
passed last night there." And he adds maliciously : 
" I have ascertained that Madame de Mazarin is very 
satisfied with the conversation which she had with the 
King." 

Since there could now be no longer any room for 
doubt as to the nature of Charles's relations with that 
lady, Courtin deemed it politic to pay Madame de 
Mazarin the most assiduous attentions, in the hope 
that, by ingratiating himself with her, he might bring 
her to regard the Court of France with more kindly 
feelings and thus minimize the danger of the influence 
which she might acquire over the King's mind. He, 
accordingly, became one of the most devoted of her 
courtiers, and not a day seems to have passed without 
him paying her a visit. He spent so much time in her 
apartments, in fact, and wrote of her to Versailles in 
such enthusiastic terms (" If you had seen her dancing 
the 'furlone ' to the guitar, you could not have pre- 
vented yourself from altogether espousing her cause "), 
that Louvois appears to have had some suspicion that 
he was falling under the siren's spell. The Ambassador 
hastened to exculpate himself from such an accusation, 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 207 

and assured the Minister that, notwithstanding their 
daily intercourse, she had not yet succeeded in turning 
his head, although " the poor Ambassador of Portugal 
was dying for love of her." At the same time, he 
expresses his opinion that, notwithstanding the amiability 
which Madame de Mazarin showed towards himself, he 
was certain that she was embittered against France, by 
the refusal of Louis XIV. to secure for her the increase 
of her pension which Charles II. had demanded, and 
that it would be most advisable to satisfy her in 
this matter. 

Writing three days later (November 2, 1676), 
Courtin states that Charles II. still continues to pay 
frequent visits to Louise de Keroualle's apartments, 
though only at such times as the lady was in the habit 
of receiving other visitors ; and that he believed that 
he might truthfully say that his Majesty passed the 
night more frequently with Nell Gwyn than with her. 
Indeed, if the best informed of the courtiers were to 
be believed, he was " content to live very virtuously 
with Madame de Portsmouth." " As for what con- 
cerns Madame de Mazarin," he continues, " I know 
that he [the King] considers her the most beautiful 
woman that he has ever beheld. Although I visit 
her every day, I perceive that she conceals from me 
as much as possible, and I am the most deceived person 
in the world if she is not engaged in some political 
intrigue here." 

The Ambassador, it may be mentioned, great as 
was his admiration for Madame de Mazarin, appears 
to have been of opinion that she must yield the palm 
for beauty to an English lady. " I am going to see 



208 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Madame Middleton,"* he writes to Louvois, " who 
is the most beautiful woman in England and the most 
amiable. I should give her all your money, f if she 
were willing to listen to me, but she once refused a 
purse of fifteen hundred pounds which M. de Gra- 
mont offered her. J So have no fear for your 
treasure. . . ." And in another letter : " As regards 
Madame Middleton, I have never seen a woman in 
any foreign country who has appeared to me more 
amiable. She is very beautiful ; she has an air of 
the best breeding about her ; it would be impossible 
to have more intelligence than she has ; and her 
demeanour is modest and unassuming. In a word, 
Monsieur, if I were your age, I believe that I should 
not be able to prevent myself from falling madly in 
love. But I shall soon be forty-nine, and I am be- 
ginning to be very much inconvenienced by the thick- 
ness of the London air. . . . Madame Middleton, to 
whom I said that you desired to have her portrait, 
testified to me that she was very much beholden to 

* Jane Myddelton or Middleton (1645-1692), daughter of Sir Robert Need- 
ham and wife of Charles Myddelton, of Ruabon. Pepys describes, in 1665, as 
" that famous and incomparable beauty," and she seems to have been generally 
acknowledged as the most lovely woman at Charles II. 's Court. Her portraits 
depict her as a blonde beauty of the languorous type, with a voluptuous figure, 
full lips, auburn hair, and dark hazel eyes. She is believed to have numbered 
among her lovers, or soupirants, the King, the Duke of York, Ralph Montagu, 
Lawrence Hyde, Clarendon's second son, Gramont, and Edmund Waller, the 
poet. 

f The fund established in England by Louis XIV., after the Marquis de 
Sessac's mission to Versailles, for the corruption of members of Parliament. 

X He had previously despatched other gifts, accompanied by ardent declara- 
tions of love, but both went astray in transmission, being intercepted by Mr». 
Myddelton's maid. 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 209 

you. Thus, Monsieur, you see that you stand very 
well with her who is the most beautiful in England. 
It only remains to you to be the same with her who 
is the most amiable in France, and I counsel you not 
to lose the opportunity of profiting by it." 

Charles II. and Madame de Mazarin continued 
their secret interviews in the apartments of the little 
Countess of Sussex until the end of that year, when, 
to their intense chagrin, they found themselves no 
longer able to make use of this most convenient ren- 
dezvous. Lord Sussex, who, although very young, 
was, according to Courtin, " de fort mechante humeur" 
had, as we have mentioned, viewed his wife's friendship 
with a lady who had rendered herself so unpleasantly 
notorious with a far from friendly eye, and, towards 
the end of November, encouraged by his mother-in-law, 
the Duchess of Cleveland, and by Louise de Keroualle, 
" who entertains a mortal hatred for Madame de 
Sussex, because she believes that she is conducting 
the intrigue between the King and Madame de 
Mazarin,"* announced his intention of carrying off 
his wife into the country. " They say," writes Lady 
Chaworth, " her husband and she will part unless 
she leave the Court and be content to live with him 
in the country, he disliking her much converse with 
Madame Mazarin and the addresses she gets in that 
company. . . ." Courtin opined that the King 
" would not suffer Madame de Mazarin to be left 
without a companion," and perhaps Lord Sussex 
might have yielded to his Majesty's persuasions, had 

* Courtin to Louvois, November 29, 1676. 

14 



210 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the little countess and her friend conducted them- 
selves with more discretion. But they had been 
learning to fence, and one dull December morning 
took it into their heads to show the town what pro- 
ficiency they had acquired in that art. Accordingly, 
" they went downe into St. James's Parke, with drawne 
swords under their night gownes (i.e., dressing-gowns), 
which they drew out and made several fine passes, 
much to the admiration of severall men that was 
lookers-on in the Parke." 

This escapade exhausted Lord Sussex's patience, 
and a few days later he carried off his wife to Hurst- 
monceaux Castle, his seat in Sussex, where the young 
countess had to derive what consolation she could 
for her separation from Madame de Mazarin by kissing a 
miniature of that lady which she had brought with her. 

During the last weeks of 1676, the favour of the 
Duchess of Portsmouth continued to decline, al- 
though, to spare her feelings, or rather to spare himself 
her tears and reproaches, Charles appears to have been 
at great pains to conceal from her and from every one 
his meetings with his new enchantress. Thus, Courtin 
reported that, though very frequently after retiring 
to rest, the King rose again, dressed, and left his 
apartments, and did not return to them until five 
o'clock in the morning, no one seemed to know for 
certain where he spent the interval, although " the 
best-informed courtiers do not believe that he passes 
his nights with Madame de Portsmouth. He pays 
her every attention during the day ; but he reserves 
to himself the liberty of passing the night with whom 
he pleases." 



THE DIKE OF ST. ALBANS 
From a picture in the collection or Laid de L'lale and Dudle 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 211 

But, if Charles were anxious to spare the feelings 
of his mistress en titre, Nell Gwyn was not so con- 
siderate, and she indulged in biting witticisms at the 
expense of her discomfited rival, which seldom failed 
to reach the latter's ears. The advent of the all- 
conquering Italian had made no difference to Nell's 
position ; indeed, she was, if anything, in higher favour 
than ever, and at the end of 1676 had the satisfaction 
of seeing her eldest son by the King not only acknow- 
ledged by his royal father, but raised to the peerage. 
The way in which she obtained these advantages for 
the boy was certainly characteristic of her. 

The recent favours bestowed upon the sons of the 
Duchesses of Cleveland and Portsmouth had occasioned 
her no little dissatisfaction, and one day when Charles 
came to visit her, he found her in a decidedly snappish 
mood. Presently, she sent for her eldest boy and, as 
soon as he appeared, exclaimed : " Come hither, you 
little bastard ! " The King remonstrated. " I have 
no better name to call him by," was the retort. 
"Then I must give him one," said the King, laugh- 
ing ; and on December 27, 1676, Charles Beauclerk 
was duly acknowledged as his Majesty's son and created 
Baron Headington and Earl of Burford. " Never 
was a peerage sought in so witty and abrupt a manner," 
observes Cunningham, " and never was a plea for one 
so immediately admitted." Nor was this all that 
was done, for shortly afterwards the little Earl of Bur- 
ford was betrothed to Lady Diana Vere, the only child 
of Aubrey de Vere, the twentieth and last Earl of 
Oxford. The ex-orange-girl was not spared to witness 
her son's marriage to the last survivor of that illustrious 

14* 



/ 

212 RIVAL SULTANAS 

family, but she lived long enough to see Diana Vere 
in the infancy of those charms which were to make 
her, as Duchess of St. Albans,* one of the most con- 
spicuous beauties whom Kneller painted, and to cause 
Lord Halifax to write " for the toasting-glasses of the 
Kit-Cat Club " : 

The line of Vere so long renowned in arms 
Concludes with lustre in St. Albans' charms, 
Her conquering eyes have made their race compleat. 
They rose in valour and in beauty set. 

Imitated from Waller (" On St. James's Park ") : 

Making the circle of their reign complete 
Those suns of empire, where they rise they set. 

Courtin describes an amusing scene when " the 
actress whom they call Miss Nelly " came to visit the 
Duchesse de Mazarin, in order to thank her for her 
congratulation on the recognition of Charles Beau- 
clerk and his elevation to the peerage. The Duchess 
of Portsmouth had also come to visit Madame de 
Mazarin, " which did not happen very often," as had 
Lady Harvey, f a firm ally of the new favourite and a 

* Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford, was created Duke of St. Albans in 1684. 

•j- Eleanor Montagu, daughter of Edward Montagu, second Baron Montagu, of 

Boughton, and sister of Ralph Montagu, English Ambassador in France. She 

was a woman of considerable attainments, and La Fontaine wrote of her in the 

fable of le Renard anglais : 

Le bon cceur est chez vous compagnon du bon sens, 
Avec cent qualites trop longues a deduire, 
Une noblesse d'ame, un talent pour conduire 

Et les affaires et les gens, 
Une humeur fraiche et libre et le don d'etre amie 
Malgre Jupiter meme et les temps orageux. 
If, however, we are to believe the gossip of her contemporaries, she was ad- 
dicted to the most revolting of vices, and her enmity against the Duchess of 
Portsmouth and her intimacy with Madame de Mazarin were due to the same 
cause. 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 213 

sworn enemy of the old. " Everything passed off 
quite gaily, and with many civilities from one to the 
other ; but I do not suppose that in all England it 
would be possible to get together three women more 
obnoxious to one another." When the Duchess of 
Portsmouth had taken her departure, the irrepressible 
Nell, " who was in a very sprightly humour," began 
to banter the Ambassador, and asked him before every 
one to persuade Louis XIV. to make her a handsome 
present, " telling me that she well deserved it and 
that she was of much more service to the King of 
England than was Madame de Portsmouth, and making 
me understand and all the company that he passed the 
night more often with her." After which, at the 
request of the other ladies, who had heard much of 
the fineness of the actress's underclothing and wanted 
to see for themselves if report had spoken truly, the 
young lady " lifted up all her petticoats, one after the 
other ; and never have I seen anything so neat or more 
magnificent."* 

At the beginning of February, 1677, to the astonish- 
ment of Court and town a formal reconciliation was 
effected between the Duchess of Portsmouth and 
Madame de Mazarin, who had hitherto treated one 
another with the most frigid courtesy, and had declined 
to meet at the same table. It took place at a supper- 
party at the French Embassy and was due in some 
degree to the address of Courtin, who, in view of the 
approaching meeting of Parliament and the bitter 
hostility of the Commons to France, had recognized 
that the union of all the favourites was imperative, 

* Courtin to Pomponne, January i8 } 1677. 



2i 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

if the indolent monarch were to be kept in a combative 
mood. 

One evening at the Opera, Lady Harvey and Mrs. 
Myddelton, happening to meet the Ambassador, in- 
vited themselves to sup with him on the morrow, and 
each asked permission to bring one of her friends. 
Lady Harvey arrived with Madame de Mazarin, and 
Mrs. Myddelton with the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
who brought with her Lady Beauclerk, whom Courtin 
describes as " after Madame Myddelton the most 
beautiful woman in England, and formerly an in- 
timate friend of Lady Harvey, but now at daggers 
drawn with her." It was certainly an oddly-assorted 
supper-party ; but fortunately none of the ladies was 
destitute of a sense of humour, and they proceeded 
to enjoy themselves. Supper over, his Excellency, 
who was not the man to squander his providences, 
playfully locked up together in couples in the same 
rooms the ladies whom he deemed the most violently 
antagonistic ; and when he released the two duchesses 
from this species of imprisonment, he had the satis- 
faction of seeing them " emerge hand-in-hand and 
come skipping and dancing down the stairs." 

And so, for a time at least, peace reigned in the camp 
of the concubines. 

This apparent reconciliation was the proof of the 
triumph of Madame de Mazarin ; and just as the 
long-suffering Queen had formerly resigned herself 
to the ascendency of the Duchess of Cleveland, so 
the haughty young Frenchwoman, already obliged to 
tolerate Nell Gwyn and the mistresses of the gutter, 



TRIUMPH OF MADAME DE MAZARIN 215 

resigned herself to the reign of the Italian. And having 
schooled herself to accept what she could not prevent, 
Louise de Keroualle actually carried her complaisance 
to the length of inviting her rival to dinner and after- 
wards taking both her and Lady Harvey to the Mall 
in her carriage. 

From that moment, no one could any longer enter- 
tain any doubt that the new love had, temporarily 
at any rate, supplanted the old, or if there were any 
such, their doubts must soon have been removed by 
the splendour with which Madame de Mazarin pro- 
ceeded to surround herself. " She has had a livery 
made," writes Courtin to Louvois, " more mag- 
nificent than any with which you are acquainted ; the 
lace costs three livres, fifteen sols the French ell, and 
the coats are quite hidden by it. There are nine of 
them, with which to array two porters, six lackeys and 
a page ; and they cost, with the cravats, 2,600 livres. 
She keeps an excellent table. In a word, her ex- 
penditure far exceeds the two thousand crowns which 
she receives from her husband. . . . She has grown 
handsomer, she is stouter, and her beauty has reached 
the highest point of its perfection. . . . With the 
appetite which God has given her, she would certainly 
devour double the income that she has, and if her 
husband were aware of how excellent is her health, 
he would make no difficulty about increasing her 
pension. I do not know how she does it, but these 
extraordinary expenses appear to me a little sus- 
picious. . . ." In another letter, the Ambassador 
declares that the duchess " is on as good terms with 
the King as it is possible for a beautiful lady to be," 



216 RIVAL SULTANAS 

and expresses his surprise that, at a time when it was 
of such supreme importance to the Court of France 
to possess the goodwill of Charles II., it should not 
have been considered necessary to secure that of his 
mistress. Finally, on March 4, Courtin reports that 
Madame de Mazarin has been shut up with the King 
from three o'clock in the afternoon until seven, in a 
room adjacent to the royal apartments, to which only 
his Majesty and a confidential valet de chambre* 
possessed keys. 

* Presumably, William Chiffinch, Keeper of the Closet to the King, " who, 
above all his predecessors, carried the abuse of back-stain influence to scientific 
perfection." 



CHAPTER XIV 

CHARLES, LOUIS AND THE PARLIAMENT 

A ND so Charles II. had the satisfaction of adding 
perhaps the most beautiful woman in Europe 
to his seraglio ; but it was a satisfaction which he would 
have done wisely to deny himself, for, thanks in a great 
measure to the enormous sums lavished on " the ladies 
in service " and those on the retired list, his Majesty's 
financial position was growing desperate. He appealed 
to his paymaster at Versailles for assistance, but Louis 
was not in a condition to give more than he had 
bargained for. In the campaign of the previous year, 
the French had captured Conde, Bouchain and Aire, 
forced William of Orange to raise the siege of Maes- 
tricht, and almost annihilated the fleets of Spain and 
Holland. But these successes had been dearly bought. 
France was exhausted and seething with discontent ; 
the enormous expenditure which the war was en- 
tailing had caused oppressive taxation — leading to 
revolts in Normandy, Brittany and Guienne — the sale 
of offices and, finally, to great loans, which had to be 
raised at ten per cent, interest. It was only, indeed, 
with difficulty that Louis was able to pay to Charles 
217 



218 RIVAL SULTANAS 

his quarterly " salary " ; but this he did regularly, 
receiving in exchange the following holograph form 
of receipt : 

"J' ay recu du Roy Tres Chrestien, par les mains 
de M. Courtin, la somme de cent mille escus, monnoie 
de France, pour le second quartier qui est escheu le 
dernier jour de juin, en deduction de quatre cens mille 
escus payable a la Jin de V annee. Fuit a Whitehall, 
le 2$ e Septembre, 1676. Charles — R" 

But these supplies were quite insufficient for Charles's 
needs, and so low had the credit of the Crown sunk 
that it was impossible to raise a loan in London. He 
had therefore no alternative but to allow Parliament 
to meet on the date originally fixed (February 25, 
1677). 

Louis could not prevent Parliament from assemb- 
ling, but he could afford a considerable sum for 
bribing members of both Houses. The Earl of Berk- 
shire, who two years before had extracted from the 
French Government the sum of one thousand jacobus 
to compensate him for the pension from Spain which 
he declared his zeal for the interests of the Most 
Christian King had cost him, consented, in con- 
sideration of the promise of a similar sum, part of 
which he insisted on Courtin paying down, to create 
a French party in the Lords ; Coleman, the Duke of 
York's secretary, was won over by the same means, 
and Lauderdale, though personally inaccessible to 
bribery, was secured through his rapacious wife. All 
due economy was exercised in this very dirty business, 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 219 

and often Courtin appears to have considered it 
sufficient to distribute " presents of champagne and 
other wines " to command a vote. " You would 
not believe," he writes to Pomponne, " how much 
five or six dozen bottles of wine sent at a suitable 
moment can serve to calm their minds. For, on 
leaving the Parliament, they go to dine with one 
another, and that is the time when cabals are formed." 
The Ambassador, however, was required to exercise 
great discretion in his selection of these venal legis- 
lators, since there were a great many who would not 
scruple to accept the money of the King of France 
without any intention of rendering his Majesty the 
services expected of them in return. Altogether, 
Courtin, who was an honourable man, seems to have 
been not a little ashamed of the part which he was 
being called upon to play ; but his scruples did not 
please Louis XIV. and his Ministers. To their minds, 
all means were justifiable if only they could make 
themselves masters of the Netherlands. 

At the opening of the new session a blunder on the 
part of a section of the Opposition gave the Govern- 
ment a marked advantage, and enabled Danby to get 
rid of his most powerful foes for a season. Shaftesbury 
and his friends asserted the illegality of proroguing 
Parliament for more than a year, and circulated 
pamphlets wherein it was argued that this illegality 
had ipso facto dissolved the Parliament. A motion 
brought forward by them to this effect having been 
rejected, another, proposing that Shaftesbury, Buck- 
ingham, Salisbury and Wharton should be called to 
account for their action, was carried by the Court. 



220 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Ordered to acknowledge their error and to ask pardon 
at the Bar of the House, they refused to do so, and 
were thereupon brought to the Bar as delinquents, 
and committed to the Tower during the King's 
pleasure. 

But this success was of short duration, for the cam- 
paign of 1677 had begun unusually early, and soon 
came the tidings of the fall of Valenciennes and Cam- 
brai ; the defeat of the Prince of Orange at Cassel, 
and the capitulation of Saint-Omer. The news 
of Louis's fresh triumphs aroused a fresh out- 
burst of hostility to France. Addresses to the King, 
praying him to recall the English troops serving in 
the French army, were passed in both Houses ; and 
twice the Commons urged him to declare war against 
France, with offers of unlimited support. " The 
English," writes Courtin, " are ready to sell the shirts 
off their backs to save the Netherlands. These are the 
very words they make use of. The clamour could not 
be louder. We are fattening on their curses." 

The temper of the Commons rose as the fortunes 
of William of Orange and his allies declined, until, 
presuming on the concession of principle which Charles 
had made by laying before them the Traite simule, 
though in so doing he had grossly deceived them, 
they informed him that they would give no money 
for alliances which had not been submitted to them 
for discussion. This demand was an altogether new 
departure, and one of a most important kind, implying, 
indeed, a violation of the Constitution, as it had been 
understood for centuries, far more serious than the 
King's abuse of his dispensing power, which had been 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 221 

so bitterly resented. For the right of entering into 
foreign alliances, and of deciding upon peace and war, 
were the choicest flowers of the royal prerogative, and 
for Charles to have given way would have been to 
confess himself utterly worsted in his struggle with the 
Parliament.* 

In angry and contemptuous terms the King rejected 
the demand, and bade the Commons mind their own 
business. " You do not content yourselves," said he, 
" with desiring me to enter into secret leagues as may be 
for the safety of my kingdom ; but you tell me what 
sort of leagues they must be, and with whom. Should 
I suffer this fundamental power of making peace and 
war to be invaded (though but once), as to have the 
manner and circumstance of leagues prescribed to me 
by Parliament, it's plain that no Prince or State would 
any longer believe that the Sovereignty of England 
resided in the Crown ; nor could I think myself to 
signify any more to foreign princes than the empty 
sound of a king. Wherefore, you may rest assured 
that no condition shall make me depart from or lessen 
so essential a part of the Monarchy." Then, as though 
to emphasize the little account he took of his listeners, 
he directed them to adjourn — not to adjourn them- 
selves ; and, though several members rose to protest, 
the Speaker, without any question put, declared the 
House adjourned, and left the chair. Next day the 
King caused his speech to be printed in the news- 
sheets ; while the transactions of the House were not 
allowed to be printed or even distributed in a written 

form, 

* Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 



222 RIVAL SULTANAS 

" Thus," writes Andrew Marvell, in the bitterness 
of his heart, " were they well rewarded for their itch 
of perpetual sitting and of acting, the Parliament being 
grown to that height of contempt as to be gazetted 
among runaway servants, lost dogs, strayed horses and 
highway robbers." 

Charles had spoken boldly to the House, and he 
followed up his bold words by even bolder actions. 
Each time that the attitude of the Commons became 
too threatening, he replied by promptly adjourning 
them : from May to July, from July to December, 
and from December to April, 1678, though, for reasons 
which will presently be related, they were, in fact, 
summoned to meet in January. 

But this sort of proceeding could not go on indefi- 
nitely, and while the Commons were thus being con- 
temptuously kicked from adjournment to adjournment, 
" as from one stair down to another," Courtin was 
writing to Louvois, in answer to a despatch of the 
Minister informing him of the continued success of 
the French arms : " Continue ; conquer as much as 
you can this year, for next year it will be impossible 
for the King of England, unless he choose to ruin 
himself entirely, to avoid entering the league against 
us." 

To those familiar with Charles's methods, it was, of 
course, perfectly clear that he had succeeded in ob- 
taining elsewhere the funds which Parliament had 
refused him ; and, indeed, all through the spring and 
summer his Majesty had been drawing considerable 
sums at the French Embassy, in return for each suc- 
cessive adjournment, that from December to April 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 223 

being purchased at the price of 2,000,000 livres, after 
haggling worthy of a couple of Jew peddlers. Charles 
was thus enabled to defray the ordinary expenses of 
government, and satisfy, to some extent at least, the 
demands of the seraglio ; while Louis gained the 
prospect of a few months more freedom from English 
intervention. 

It was not, however, Courtin who negotiated these 
interesting financial transactions, but Barrillon, who 
had arrived in London at the beginning of May, 1677. 
Louis XIV. had recognized the necessity of having a 
less scrupulous Ambassador in England, and when 
Courtin complained that the climate of London was 
having an injurious effect upon his health,* and his 
prolonged residence at so expensive a Court as White- 
hall a still more injurious effect upon his fortune, he 
promptly took him at his word. On learning, how- 
ever, that Barrillon had been appointed to succeed him, 
he appears to have regretted his complaints, and, in a 
letter to Louvois, endeavoured to show that the in- 
fluence of the Court ladies, with whom he was so great 
a favourite, was of more importance than that of 
money. In this letter, he informs the Minister that 
the Duchess of Portsmouth had benefited greatly 
by her visit to Bath, and that, though the King had 
" left her for some time in repose," yet, if she con- 
tinued in good health, she had so beautiful a complexion 
that " he could not believe that he could be continually 
near her without desiring her." 

* In one of his despatches to Pomponne, he declares that he owed his life to 
the advice of Charles, who had recommended him to wear Welsh flannel next 
his skin, and that there was " nothing so warm or so healthy." 



224 RIVAL SULTANAS 

But the French Government, though it was far from 
underrating the part played by women in English poli- 
tics, or the address which Courtin had shown in dealing 
with them, was of opinion that the time had arrived 
when the continued neutrality of England could only 
be secured by gold — by profuse and unscrupulous 
bribery — and that the man required for this business 
was one more skilled in recruiting traitors than in com- 
posing differences between sultanas. And so Courtin 
had to give way to Barrillon, and in September he 
returned to France, though not before he had taken 
care to place his successor on the best of terms with 
the Duchess of Portsmouth. " I am persuaded," he 
writes to Pomponne, in asking for an abbey for a certain 
Madame de Tymeur, an aunt of the duchess — a piece 
of preferment which, in his opinion, could not fail to 
dispose the latter favourably towards the new Am- 
bassador — " that, if you viewed matters from so close 
at hand as we do, you would consider that it is 
important for an Ambassador of France to have the 
liberty of access to Madame de Portsmouth at all 
hours of the day." 

Barrillon, like Courtin, belonged to a family of the 
magistracy, being a son of the celebrated President 
Barrillon, who had been punished for his resistance to 
Richelieu by imprisonment at Pinerolo, where he died 
in 1645. With manners as polished as those of his pre- 
decessor at the French Embassy, and almost equally 
skilful in divining and thwarting feminine manoeuvres, 
he was an infinitely shrewder judge of men, and was a 
master of the art of corrupting them, and of hiding 




[EAN JACQUES BARRILLON 

From a contemporary print. 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 225 

his contempt for those who yielded to his persuasions. 
" He pays them with a smiling face ; he sees them die 
without remorse," observes M. Forneron, who compares 
him to " those Ambassadors of Philip II. of Spain who 
threw the doubloons to the Catholic conspirators, 
simulated an interest in the democracy of the League, 
and then, the game being lost, heaped up a new stake." 
For the rest, he was an agreeable companion and a good 
friend. When in Paris, he was nearly always to be found 
at the house of Madame de Sevigne, to whom he once 
observed : " Those who love you more than I do, love 
you too much." He was also on intimate terms with 
La Fontaine, and a great admirer of his work ; and on 
the occasion of Barrillon being sent to England, the poet 
addressed to him some charming verses. 

Barrillon's first dealings with Charles were scarcely 
calculated to give him a very favourable impression of 
his Britannic Majesty's sense of honour, for the King 
declared that when he had agreed to accept 2,000,000 
livres from Louis, he had, of course, understood 
£200,000, which, at the current rate of exchange, 
meant a considerable difference in his favour. When 
the Ambassador began to remonstrate, he interrupted 
him, begging him " in God's name not to speak of the 
affair, as he could not bear to hear it spoken of," but to 
go and arrange the matter with Danby. Then, con- 
ducting Barrillon to the door of his cabinet, he opened 
it himself, and said : "I am so ashamed that I cannot 
speak any more to you. Go, see the Treasurer, for he 
has made known to me such large wants that I can- 
not believe that the King my brother will leave 
me in this embarrassment." After such a piteous 

15 



226 RIVAL SULTANAS 

appeal, further resistance was, of course, out of the 
question. 

But a much more serious mortification than that 
of being jockeyed out of a few thousand livres was 
in store for him, for within a few weeks of pocketing 
this last bribe, he was to see Charles take a step 
which practically, if not verbally, cut right athwart 
his engagements to Louis XIV. 

In September, 1677, William of Orange, that sickly 
but indomitable prince, who, through disappointment 
and defeat, with jealous States and suspicious Parlia- 
ments, with raw levies and scant supplies, was out 
of his marvellous and heroic tenacity gradually to 
create such a resistance to the ambitious schemes of 
Louis as turned the whole current of the world's 
history, arrived in England, ostensibly on a merely 
friendly visit to his uncles, King Charles and the Duke 
of York, and proceeded to Newmarket, where the 
brothers were staying for the autumn race-meeting. 
As usual, nothing was talked of there but the merits 
of dogs and horses and fighting-cocks, although 
both William's errand and the answer he was to 
receive were so perfectly understood that he wrote 
to the States-General to announce the step he was 
about to take. It was not until his return with the 
Court to Whitehall towards the end of October that 
he formally asked for the hand of James's eldest 
daughter, the Princess Mary, and received a favourable 
answer. In order to give Louis XIV. no time for 
remonstrance, the affair was marked by the greatest 
haste and secrecy, and Barrillon was not informed 
by Charles that the marriage had been decided upon 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 227 

until bonfires were blazing in the streets of London, 
to testify to the joy of the citizens at the approach- 
ing union of a princess in the line of succession to 
the throne of England and the champion of the 
Reformation. 

Seldom, if ever indeed, was a marriage between 
two such illustrious persons celebrated in a more 
clandestine manner. It took place at nine o'clock on 
the evening of November 4, in the Princess Mary's 
bedchamber at St. James's Palace. " The King, who 
gave her away," writes Dr. Edward Lake, the young 
tutor of Mary and her sister Anne, " was very 
pleasant all the while, for he desired that the Bishop 
of London* would make haste, lest his sister should 
be delivered of a son and so the marriage be dis- 
appointed ; and when the prince endowed her with 
all his worldly goods, he willed to put all up in her 
pocket, for 'twas clear gains." f 

When, at eleven o'clock, the young couple retired 
to bed, his Majesty came and drew the curtains, and 
indulged in other jocular remarks, for which, however, 
we must refer the reader to " The Diary of Dr. 
Edward Lake." 

This marriage, there can be very little doubt, was 
the direct work of Danby, and is a signal proof of the 
influence which that Minister had acquired over the 
King. It is probable, however, that Charles did not 

* Dr. Henry Compton. He had taken an active part in compelling the Duke 
of York to have his children educated in the doctrines of the Church of England. 

f On the evening of November 7, the Duchess of York gave birth to a son, 
Charles, Duke of Cambridge, the fifth of James's ill-fated children to bear 
this title. 

15* 



228 RIVAL SULTANAS 

require very much persuasion, since the advantages 
which he would derive from it were perfectly obvious. 
As he himself told Barrillon, it would go far to remove 
from the minds of the nation those suspicions of his 
designs in favour of the Catholics which threatened 
so much danger to the Monarchy ; while William 
of Orange would now regard the interests of the 
Crown as his own, and would support them against 
Shaftesbury and his friends, who were already suspected 
of a desire to exclude James from the succession. 

There was also another reason, which Charles 
naturally did not confide to the French Ambassador, 
but of which that astute personage must have had 
a shrewd suspicion. It was that Charles, though by 
no means prepared to dispense with the French 
King's subsidies so long as Parliament remained in 
a niggardly mood, was becoming very uneasy about 
his bargain with Louis, and would far rather have 
obtained his supplies from the Commons, if only an 
acceptable arrangement could be arrived at with that 
body. Of this he was not without hope, and he 
believed that the marriage of the Stattholder to 
James's daughter would go far towards bringing it 
about. 

As for James, he appears to have been induced to 
waive his natural objections to the match, partly by 
the reflection that the nation would now look past 
himself to the Protestant husband of its future Queen, 
but more by the firm attitude assumed by Charles, 
who, when he heard of possible objections on his 
brother's part, observed contemptuously : " Odd's fish ! 
he must consent." 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 229 

Louis, although " he received the news as he would 
have done the loss of an army," judged it prudent 
to dissemble his indignation, and sent his ceremonial 
compliments with his customary punctiliousness. But 
he never forgave either Charles or Danby for this 
virtual breach of faith, nor was it long before he 
found an opportunity of expressing his resentment 
towards both in a very practical form. 



William and his bride took their departure on No- 
vember 19, the King and the Duke of York accompanying 
them as far as Gravesend, where the vessel which was 
to convey them to Holland awaited them. " The 
princess wept grievously all the morning. . . . The 
Queen observing her highnesse to weep as she took 
leave of her Majesty, would have comforted her with 
the recollection of her own condition when she 
came into England and had never till then seen 
the King ; to whom her highnesse presently replied : 
' But, madam, you came into England ; but I am 
going out of England.' "* 

It is scarcely surprising that the young princess was 
reluctant to leave England, since William had hitherto 
shown himself far from an attentive bridegroom, 
and the courtiers had remarked upon the prince's 
" sullennesse and clownishnesse, and that he took no 
notice of the princess at the play and the balle, nor 
came to see her at St. James's the day before 
this designed for her departure."! William's mind, 

* " Diary of Dr. Edward Lake." 
t Ibid. 



2 3 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

however, was occupied just then by more important 
matters than love-making. His business was to over- 
come the wavering resolutions of Charles and induce 
him to throw in his lot definitely with the Allies. In 
this he was to a certain extent successful, and, on 
November 23, the English Government intervened 
with proposals of peace to Louis, which would have 
robbed him in the very flush of triumph of the north- 
eastern frontier which French statesmen had so long 
coveted. Louis's answer was a haughty refusal and 
a prompt discontinuance of the payments provided 
for in the last treaty ; upon which Charles intimated 
that he should regard the treaty as no longer in force ; 
and Parliament, which had been prorogued until 
April, was, in revenge, suddenly summoned for the 
beginning of February. Recognizing the mistake he 
had committed, Louis not only offered Charles an 
increased subsidy and a large present to Danby, but 
professed himself willing to consider the proposed 
conditions. But, thanks to Danby's efforts, Charles 
for once stood firm, and in January, 1678, a treaty 
was signed at The Hague, whereby England and Holland 
bound themselves to compel the assent of both France 
and Spain to the terms offered ; after which Charles 
recalled the English troops in the French service and 
began preparations for war. 

Louise de Keroualle, although she can hardly have 
failed to penetrate the object of William's visit to 
England, had recognized the futility of attempting 
to dissuade Charles from giving his consent to the 
Dutch marriage ; nor would she appear to have made 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 231 

any great effort to prevent the breach with France 
which followed that event. The explanation is that, 
almost immediately after the departure of William 
and his bride, she fell so dangerously ill that at one 
time her life was despaired of, and she was compelled 
to keep her bed for nearly six weeks. Charles appears 
to have been very attentive to the duchess during this 
time, and even gave audience to the French Ambassador 
in the sick-room ; and Madame de Scudery, in a letter 
to her friend Bussy-Rabutin, tells him that she has 
heard that at the crisis of her illness " Keroualle 
preached to the King, crucifix in hand, to detach him 
from women." The writer adds that " three or four 
days after this, feeling better, she forced herself to 
rise and dragged herself into the royal box at the 
theatre, where the King was sitting with Madame 
de Mazarin." 

The rivalry between the two duchesses was now 
less bitter, they having apparently arrived at a kind 
of tacit understanding to share Charles's attentions 
and benefits between them. But, with the exception 
of Nell Gwyn, whom they knew it was futile to try 
and get rid of, both were determined not to tolerate 
any other pretender to the rank of favourite. 

In the spring of 1677, Sidonie de Lenoncourt, Mar- 
quise de Courcelles, the lady who had shared Madame 
de Mazarin's seclusion in the Couvent des Filles de 
Sainte-Marie at Paris and co-operated with her in 
making things so unpleasant for the luckless inmates 
of that institution, arrived in England, " which," 
wrote Barrillon to Pomponne, " is now the refuge of all 
the women who have quarrelled with their husbands." 



232 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Madame de Courcelles, who had had an even more 
romantic career than the duchess, was one of the most 
beautiful women in France, and the description of her 
own charms which she has left us in her Memoires* 
would appear to be but little exaggerated ; indeed, 
Madame de Sevigne declares that " to see and to adore 
her is the same thing." That she had come to England 
in the hope of finding favour in the eyes of Charles II. 
appears only too probable ; but Madame de Mazarin 
had no mind to lend herself to such a design, and 
she gently but firmly intimated to her former ally 
that, though his Majesty's heart might be a capacious 
one, there was not room in it for two Frenchwomen 
at the same time, and persuaded her to return to 
France. 

On her side, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Barrillon 
tells us, prevailed upon Charles to refuse the entry to 
his cabinet to Mrs. Myddelton, having ascertain d 
that that lady was conspiring with Lady Harvey " tti 
engage the King to honour Mile. Myddeltonf with 
his attentions," and that " Madame Myddelton only 
brought her daughter there with the design to please, 
which is a capital offence in her eyes." This rebuff 



* "lam tall ; I have an admirable figure ; I have rather fine eyes, which I 
never quite open, and this is a charm which renders my glance the sweetest and 
most tender in the world. I have a well-formed bosom, divine hands, passable 
arms, that is to say, a little thin, but I find consolation for this misfortune in 
the pleasure of having the most beautiful legs in the world." 



f Jane Myddelton, the younger, who had inherited her mother's good looks, 
was at this time in her sixteenth year. She afterwards married Charles May, 
son of Sir Algernon May, of Hampton. 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 233 

greatly exasperated Mrs. Myddelton and Lady Harvey, 
who did everything they could to incite Madame de 
Mazarin against the duchess, and endeavoured to form 
a cabal to effect her overthrow. But Louise was well 
able to hold her own, and in the summer of 1678 
Barrillon reported that she appeared to be held in 
greater consideration than she was when he arrived 
in England. " I cannot doubt that the King speaks 
to her of everything — and that she is able to do much 
to insinuate what she wishes. I believe also that milord 
Treasurer [Danby] makes use of her to accomplish 
things which he does not wish to propose himself. She 
takes great pains to let me see how jealous she is for 
the interests of the King [Louis XIV.]." He added 
that the most influential courtiers, such as the Earl 
of Sunderland, who was on terms of close friendship 
with the duchess, were on her side. 

I-at whatever the degree of " consideration " in 

which Louise de Keroualle happened to be held, she 

: had never any reason to complain of the generosity of 

J her royal admirer, for year after year immense sums 

! were poured into her coffers. What may be described 

as her official salary, a mere beggarly £12,000 a year, 

was, of course, quite insufficient for the requirements 

of so magnificent a dame — indeed, to judge from the 

details of a man's costume made for her, presumably 

for a fancy-dress ball, which is preserved in the British 

Museum, it could barely have sufficed for her personal 

adornment ; while she not infrequently dissipated a 

small fortune at the basset-table in a single evening. 

It had therefore to be supplemented by frequent grants, 

which the accounts of the secret service funds show 



234 RIVAL SULTANAS 

generally aggregated something like £40,000 annually, 
though in one year — 1681 — they rose to over £136,000. 
In addition to all this, she appears to have derived a 
comfortable revenue from the sale of royal pardons to 
well-to-do offenders against the Law, for which pur- 
pose she retained the services of one Timothy Hall, 
who did a brisk and lucrative business on her behalf. 

On February 7 Parliament reassembled, and Charles 
opened the session with a speech which meant war 
with France and demanded supplies for ninety ships 
and forty thousand men. But his request was far from 
meeting with the ready acceptance he appears to have 
anticipated. The Shaftesbury section of the Opposi- 
tion,* who utterly distrusted Charles and hated Danby, 
affected to believe that the King desired a standing 
army, not for war with France, but for the purpose 
of establishing despotic power. To overthrow Danby 
and secure liberty of conscience for Protestant Non- 
conformists at home were their main objects, and for 
this they were ready to render Louis free of all inter- 
ference from Charles. And, astonishing as it may seem, 
they were actually in league with Louis. For that 
monarch, anxious at all cost to render England impo- 
tent for a few months longer, had began a new line of 
policy. Recognizing that it was hopeless to rely in 
any way on Charles's word, he had decided that the 
only course left was to deprive him of all power, 
either of helping or hindering him, by keeping him 
constantly employed at home. He therefore entered 

• Shaftesbury himself was not set at liberty until February 26. He took his 
seat in the House of Lords on the following day. 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 235 

into negotiations with the Country party ; and while 
he was subsidizing Charles against the Opposition, he 
was subsidizing the Opposition against Charles. In 
fact, he kept both in his pay, on condition that they 
should not compose their differences and make common 
cause against him, and thus, by craftily fostering the 
quarrels between the King of England and his people, 
he prolonged the impotence of England in Continental 
affairs. " I leave to your zeal and to your address," 
he wrote to Barrillon, " to make use of the good inten- 
tions and the authority of the King of England against 
the Parliament, and of the Parliament likewise to render 
of no effect the resolutions which that prince might 
take against me."* 

This double intrigue was an affair after Barrillon's 
own heart, and he conducted it with his usual address. 
Unhappily for the reputation of a good many of the 
politicians of the time, all his despatches and accounts 
have been preserved, and they make very instructive 
reading. One may learn there, the tariff of the English 
patriots, the disinterestedness of the Puritans who 
preserved in their soul the cult of pure " principles," 
the integrity of the Government officials. One may 
read how Henry Powle, one of the leaders of the 
Puritan party, who two years later was to distinguish 
himself by the violence of his attacks on the honest 
but unfortunate Stafford, entered into " a close con- 
nexion " with Barrillon, and received from the Am- 
bassador's own hands " the money mentioned in the 
account ; " how that hero of Nonconformity, Algernon 
Sidney, received from the King of France five hundred 

* Forneron. 



236 RIVAL SULTANAS 

guineas each session of Parliament ; * and how certain 
officials of the Admiralty and the Exchequer were paid 
.£400 in exchange for some valuable memoranda.! 

Unable to oppose openly the war policy, the Shaftes- 
bury faction determined to insist upon conditions 
of peace so onerous that Louis XIV. would be justi- 
fied in continuing the war, and, at the same time, 
to render Charles powerless to join the coalition. 
In this they were successful, for though the men and 
ships which Charles demanded were voted, and a 
resolution agreed upon " to raise .£1,000,000 to enable 
his Majesty to enter into actual war with the French 
King," the declaration of war failed to appear ; and, 
in the meanwhile, Louis, by a series of skilful move- 
ments, captured Ghent and Ypres and invested Mons. 
Charles, as a concession to popular clamour, sent 
3,000 men to Ostend, but he privately assured Bar- 
rillon that he had no real desire for war and would do 

* " Mr. Sidney," wrote Barrillon to Louis XIV., " has been of great service 
to me on many occasions. He is a man who was in the first wars ; and is naturally 
an enemy to the Court. He has for some time been suspected of being gained 
by Lord Sunderland, but he always appeared to me to have the same sentiment 
and not to have changed his principles. He has a great deal of influence among 
the Independents, and is also intimate with those who are opposed to the Court 
in Parliament. ... I gave him only what your Majesty permitted me. He 
would willingly have had more, and, if a new gratification were given him, it 
would be easy to engage him entirely. ... I believe he is a man who would be 
very useful in the affairs of England, should they be brought to extremities." 
In a second letter, the Ambassador describes him as " a man of great views and 
high designs, which tend to the establishment of a republic." 

" It is doubtless true," observes Professor Firth, in his article on Algernon 
Sidney, in the " Dictionary of National Biography," " that Sidney used the 
money for public and not for private, objects, but this is an insufficient excuse 
for his conduct." 

j- Forneron. 



CHARLES, LOUIS AND PARLIAMENT 237 

everything in his power to avoid it. He appears, 
indeed, to have been in a pitiable state of uncertainty ; 
and it was with profound relief that he learned early 
in April that William of Orange had succeeded in 
obtaining from Louis a truce of three months, which 
furnished him with a pretext for withdrawing from 
his connexion with the Dutch, on the ground that the 
truce had been made without his advice or consent. 
The Commons, notwithstanding the opposition of 
Shaftesbury's faction, carried a resolution of adherence 
to the war policy. But, as their distrust of Charles's 
intentions prevented them from voting the supplies 
he required, his Majesty, in disgust, had recourse once 
more to Louis ; and, after the customary haggling, 
made a private treaty with him, by which he promised, 
in consideration of receiving the sum of 6,000,000 
livres a year for three years, to use his best endeavours 
to secure peace on terms favourable to France within 
two months, and, in the event of not being success- 
ful, to disband his troops and prorogue Parliament. 
The compact itself was drawn up and signed by 
Charles alone, for Danby had refused to imperil his 
safety by appending his name ; but the Minister had 
consented to write the despatches in which Ralph 
Montagu, the British Ambassador in Paris, was in- 
structed to demand payment for his master's good 
offices, Charles adding : " This letter is written by 
my order. C.R." 

Scarcely was this bargain struck, when Louis at- 
tempted to evade the terms of peace which he had 
himself offered, and an immediate renewal of the 
war appeared imminent. Charles, alarmed by the 



238 RIVAL SULTANAS 

indignation which the French King's action aroused 
in England, thereupon declined to ratify his 
secret treaty with Louis, declaring that his people 
would chase him from his kingdom if France were 
suffered to extend her conquests, and despatched 
Sir William Temple to The Hague, to make a fresh 
treaty with Holland to compel the withdrawal of the 
French pretensions. But, though the treaty was duly 
signed, the Dutch had by this time lost all faith in 
England, and on August 10 they came to terms with 
France and gave the signal for the general peace of 
Nimwegen, which, in putting an end for a time to the 
sanguinary struggle which the Treaty of Dover had 
brought upon Europe, made Louis " the arbiter of all 
in this portion of our hemisphere."* 

* La Fare, Memoires. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE POPISH PLOT 

T^HE Peace signed, Louis XIV. no longer either 
needed or feared Charles, and determined to 
punish him for the marriage of his niece and for the 
duplicity of which he had been guilty during the last 
few months. He therefore met his appeal for pay- 
ment of at least a part of the money he claimed with 
a contemptuous refusal, and determined to reveal him 
to his people in his true colours, and, at the same 
time, to wreak his vengeance upon Danby, whom he 
knew to be his consistent enemy. Nor had he far to 
look for an instrument. 

Ralph Montagu, the British Ambassador in Paris, 

had for some time past been a great admirer of the 

Duchess of Cleveland — indeed, he is believed to have 

' been indebted for his appointment to the good offices 

of that lady — and when the latter migrated to the 

French capital, it was not long before they became 

j on very intimate terms, as may be gathered from the 

| following singular specimens of orthography which 

her Grace addressed to him : 

" friday. before I reseued yours, I was in ex- 
pectation of seing you to daye, but the ocation that 
239 



2 4 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

hindars you comming I am extremely sorry for, being 
realy and kindly consarned for you and all that relats 
to you. I doe ashuer you I am as much afflicted for 
your garls illness as if she ware my one, and shall be 
as unease till I heare she is better. I was yesterday 
at Paris, but not hauing the Pleausher of seing you 
thar mayd me dislike it more than euer." 

" tuesday. I will yeld the disscret part to you, thoue 
not the other, for notwithstanding the but, I doe 
ashuer you the ten days will be more griuos [grievous] 
to me than to you." 

Nothing occurred to interrupt the harmony of the 
relations between the Ambassador and the duchess 
for some time, during which, according to what the 
latter afterwards asserted, Montagu, whose ambi- 
tions soared far beyond a mere embassy and who 
aspired, first to the post of Secretary of State and 
afterwards to the Treasury, made her the confidante 
of his designs and also of the very unflattering opinions 
which he held of Charles II. and the Duke of York. 
But a lady of such exquisite sensibility as her Grace 
could not be expected to steel her heart for long 
against the passionate appeals of other admirers ; and 
presently, though without discarding Montagu, she 
embarked upon a romance with a certain Chevalier 
de Chastillon, a captain in the guards of the Due 
d'Orleans, who, starting life " without means, in- 
telligence or wit," had, Saint-Simon tells us, " made 
his fortune by his face." Unfortunately, Montagu's 
suspicions were aroused, and having, by some means, 
succeeded in getting possession of some highly com- 



THE POPISH PLOT 241 

promising letters which the duchess had written to her 
new adorer, he resolved to punish her for her faith- 
lessness by sending them to Charles II. However, 
he took no steps in the matter until the very eve 
of the lady's departure on a visit to England in the 
spring of 1678, and they took leave of one another 
on apparently the best of terms. 

But when the duchess arrived in London, Charles 
informed her that he had certain letters of hers in 
his possession, adding sarcastically : " Madam, all that 
I ask of you for your own sake, is to live for the future 
so as to make the least noise you can, and I care not 
whom you love." 

The lady returned to Paris boiling with indignation 
against Montagu, nor was her anger lessened by learn- 
ing what had occurred during her absence. 

Some months before, the young Countess of Sussex, 
whose relations with her husband had become very 
strained, had separated from the earl and joined her 
mother in Paris, where she was placed in a convent at 
Conflans.* But, while the Duchess of Cleveland was 
in England, Charles, being of opinion that the girl 
ought not to be allowed to remain any longer under 
the maternal influence, sent secret instructions to 
Montagu to effect the removal of the Countess of 
Sussex to a convent in Paris, and afterwards to send 
her back to England. The mother, however, ignorant 
that the Ambassador was acting on the King's in- 
structions, imagined that he was carrying on an 

• At Conflans was situated the country-house of the amorous Archbishop of 
Paris, already referred to, which may perhaps account for the selection of that 
particular convent. 

16 



242 RIVAL SULTANAS 

intrigue with her nighty daughter — certainly, if what 
she says of his proceedings be true, she seems to have 
had every excuse for her belief — and wrote to Charles 
complaining bitterly of the supposed liaison. " She 
[the Countess of Sussex]," she writes, " has never been 
in the monastery two daies together, but every day 
gone out with the Embassador, and has often layen 
four daies together at my house and sent for her 
meat to the Embassador, he being allwaies with her 
till five o'clock in ye morning, they shut up together 
alone, and w d not let any maistre d'hotel wait nor 
any of my servants, onely the Embassador's. This 
made so great a noise at Paris that she is now the nolle 
discours. I am so much afflicted that I can hardly 
write this for crying, to see that a child that I doated 
on as I did on her sh d make so ill a return, and join 
with the worst of men to ruin me." 

Then, in the extremity of her wrath, the exas- 
perated duchess went on to denounce Montagu and 
to reveal the political intrigues of that personage, with 
which their previous intimacy had made her ac- 
quainted. Montagu had told her, she declared, that 
he intended to secure the Secretaryship and to make 
that post a stepping-stone to that of Lord Treasurer, 
which obtained, he would easily supply Charles with 
money for his pocket and his women and lead him 
by the nose. To facilitate his nefarious purposes, he 
had corrupted a French astrologer in whom the King 
believed, and counted on his assistance to mould his 
Majesty to his designs. " For he has neither con- 
science nor honour, and has several times told me 
that in his hart he despised you and y r Brother ; and 



THE POPISH PLOT 243 

that, for his part, he wished with all his hart that the 
Parliament w d send you both to travell, for you were 
a dull, governable fool, and the Duke a willfull fool. 
So that it was yet better to have you than him, but 
that you allwaies chose a greater beast than y r self to 
govern you." 

Without waiting for leave to quit his post, Montagu 
hurried back to England to defend himself, only to 
find that he had been already struck out of the Privy 
Council and superseded as Ambassador by the Earl 
of Sunderland. 

Now Montagu, " as arrant a knave as any in his time," 
as Swift calls him, had in his possession the originals of 
letters from Danby, which had been written by the 
King's command, relating to the secret treaty of May 
27 with Louis XIV., and he knew that their disclosure, 
in the present state of public feeling, would undoubtedly 
ruin the Treasurer — to whose enmity he attributed 
the fact that he had been disgraced without being 
suffered to defend himself — and destroy what confidence 
the nation might still retain in the honour of its King. 
In concert with Shaftesbury, he accordingly approached 
Barrillon and offered to produce these letters to the 
House of Commons and cause the fall of Danby within 
six months, in consideration of a pension of forty 
thousand livres a year or one hundred thousand crowns 
in hand. The proposal was accepted, and Montagu 
thereupon stood for the borough of Northampton at 
a bye-election, defeated the Government candidate, 
and prepared to accuse Danby before the Commons. 
What followed constitutes one of the most dramatic 
incidents in Parliamentary history. 

16* 



244 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Danby, warned by his cousin Reresby of the impend- 
ing blow, resolved to be beforehand with his enemy, 
and on December 19, 1678, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer informed the House of Commons that " his 
Majesty having received information that his late 
Ambassador in France, Mr. Montagu, had held several 
private conferences with the Pope's Nuncio there, has, 
to the end that he may discover the truth of the matter, 
given orders for the seizure of Mr. Montagu's papers." 
But Danby had to deal with a man who in cunning 
was more than his match. 

To the heated debate which at once rose, Montagu 
listened in silence until directly appealed to, when he 
rose and intervened in the most effective manner, by 
observing that " he believed that the motive of the 
orders for the seizure of his cabinet and papers was 
the desire of the Government to get into their hands 
some letters of great consequence that he had to produce 
regarding the designs of a great Minister of State." 
He added that the letters mentioned were not in the 
cabinet where they were supposed to be, but in another 
which he had entrusted to the custody of his friends. 

The cabinet was sent for, but, as it was locked and the 
key was in Danby's office, a smith was fetched and the 
lock forced. Thereupon Montagu took out some 
papers and handed them to the Speaker, who, amid 
breathless silence, read to the House two letters, the 
second of which was dated March 25, 1678, only five 
days after a large supply had been voted for the pur- 
pose of war with France. They directed Montagu 
to demand from Louis XIV. 6,000,000 livres a year, 
in the event of the French conditions of peace being 



THE POPISH PLOT 245 

accepted through Charles's efforts. They were both 
signed by Danby, while to each was added in the King's 
handwriting : " This letter is writ by my order. C.R." 

Although Montagu had violated in the grossest manner 
the only understanding upon which ministerial govern- 
ment can be carried on, no one paused to think of that 
in the tempest of indignation which the revelation of 
Charles's baseness excited. As the King himself could 
not be touched, all this indignation was directed against 
the Minister, upon whose advice he was technically 
supposed to have acted ; and, after a stormy debate, a 
resolution to impeach the Treasurer on a charge of 
high treason was adopted by the Commons. On the 
2 1 st, the articles of impeachment were voted, and, 
two days later, Danby was called upon to defend him- 
self before the Lords. This he did in a speech of con- 
spicuous ability, in which he argued that " the letters 
were writ by the King's command upon the subject 
of peace and war, wherein his Majesty was at all times 
sole judge and ought to be obeyed, not only by all 
Ministers of State, but by all subjects." He also 
emphatically denied the charge that he himself was in 
the French interest, and declared that he had always 
done his utmost to dissuade the King from entering 
into any political connexion with France. 

The Lords refused to accede to the Commons' 
demand for a committal until they had heard the 
grounds upon which it was based. The Lower House 
returned to the attack with redoubled fury. In the 
end, Charles, to save his Minister, found himself 
obliged to adopt the very course to which Shaftesbury 
and his friends had long been endeavouring to force 



246 RIVAL SULTANAS 

him ; and on January 24, 1679, declaring that he 
would no longer be a mere Doge of Venice, he dis- 
solved the Parliament, which had now sat for eighteen 
years, and which during that time had changed from 
fervid loyalty to a state of bitter hostility to the Court 
and the Crown. 

The indignation against Danby would perhaps have 
been less vehement, had not the disclosures of Montagu 
come in the midst of that extraordinary outburst of 
national insanity which is known to history as the 
" Popish Plot," though it might more properly be called 
the " Popish Terror." The only tangible evidence 
to support the fabrications of the villainous Titus 
Oates and his fellow-informers was a bundle of letters 
in the possession of Coleman, the Duke of York's 
secretary, which contained the expression of the desire 
of the more ardent Catholics to do a little of what 
Charles had actually done, that is, to obtain the 
assistance of Louis XIV. to govern without Parlia- 
ment and secure the re-establishment of the Catholic 
religion and the suppression of heresy. But there was 
not the smallest proof of connivance with any plot 
for assassination or rebellion, except the testimony of 
Oates and Bedloe. However, the credulity and horror 
of the people, already sufficiently excited by Oates's 
allegations, developed into a veritable frenzy when Sir 
Edmundbury Godfrey, the magistrate before whom 
the scoundrel had laid his information, was found dead 
on Primrose Hill with his own sword thrust through 
his heart. His death was assumed to be an attempt 
on the part of the Jesuits to " stifle the plot." No man 



THE POPISH PLOT 247 

felt his life to be safe, unless armed, and it became the 
custom to carry a little flail, loaded with lead, called 
a Protestant flail. At Godfrey's funeral, at the sermon, 
" besides the preacher, two other thumping divines 
stood up in the pulpit," to guard him from being 
killed; and when, on October 21, Parliament met, the 
Commons, after hearing Coleman's letters read, passed 
a resolution, " That this House is of opinion that there 
hath been and still is a damnable and hellish plot, 
carried on by Papish recusants, for assassinating and 
murdering the King, for subverting the Government, 
and rooting out the Protestant religion." 

When a nation is ripe for crises such as this, there is 
never wanting a politician to place himself at the 
service of its passions. Shaftesbury, now once more 
at liberty after his long imprisonment and hopeless 
of foiling Charles's policy in any other way, threw 
himself into the agitation. 

Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, was un- 
doubtedly the ablest English statesman of his age, 
and, whatever his personal ambition may have been, 
his public aims in his later years were wise and far- 
sighted. But to attain them he shrank from nothing. 
From the time when, as an undergraduate at Oxford, 
he had organized a rebellion of the " freshers " of his 
college against the oppressive customs enforced by the 
senior men, and secured their abolition, he may be 
said to have been marked out as a popular leader. At 
eighteen he was a member of the Short Parliament, 
though, on account of his age, he was not allowed to 
vote or to take part in its deliberations. On the out- 
break of the Civil War, he threw in his lot with the 



248 RIVAL SULTANAS 

King ; then, foreseeing, even in the midst of the royalist 
successes, the ultimate ruin of the royal cause, he passed 
over to the Parliament, and under the Commonwealth 
became, in the contemptuous words of Dryden, " the 
loudest bagpipe of the squeaking train." Alienated 
by the absolutism of Cromwell's rule, he, after the 
Protector's death, changed sides once more, and the 
active part he took in the recall of Charles II. was 
rewarded at the Restoration with a peerage (Baron 
Ashley) and with promotion to a foremost place in 
the royal counsels. As he had sought popularity 
with the Puritans by an affectation of sanctity, he 
now courted the favour of the King by counterfeiting 
a debauchery which surprised even his master. " You 
are the wickedest dog in England ! " laughed Charles 
at some obscene jest of his Minister's. " Of a 
subject, Sir, perhaps I am!" was the unabashed 
retort. But Shaftesbury's debauchery was merely a 
pretence, for he was as incapable of libertinage as of 
piety, as debilitated in body as he was sceptical in 
mind, with a long, pale face seared with wrinkles, and 
a " pigmy body " shaken by a continual nervous tremor. 
Although he was in religion at best a deist,* Shaftes- 
bury remained the representative of the Presbyterian 
and Nonconformist element in the Council, and was 
the constant and vehement advocate of toleration. 
His advocacy was, however, based on purely political 
grounds, from the desire to put an end to the divisions 

* The state of his mind is perhaps best represented by an anecdote in Sheffield's 
memoirs, which makes him reply to a lady who had questioned him as to his 
religion : " Madam, wise men are but of one religion ; " and when she pressed 
him further to tell her what that was : " Madam, wisejnennever^tell." 




ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, FIRST EARL OF SHAFTESBURY 
From an engraving by K. White. 



THE POPISH PLOT 249 

which left English liberty exposed to invasion from 
the Crown and robbed England of all influence in 
Europe.* He offered a strenuous, though fruitless, 
resistance to the intolerant measures of Clarendon, 
and it was largely due to the unscrupulous ability 
with which he intrigued against him that the 
great Minister owed his fall. Believing himself strong 
enough to use Charles for his own purposes, he 
accepted the Chancellorship and the earldom of 
Shaftesbury, and up to 1673 identified himself with 
the royal policy, even to the extent of making a violent 
speech in favour of the French alliance, though at 
heart he was bitterly opposed to it. But, having by 
some means learned the secret of the Treaty of 
Dover, he entirely changed his attitude, gave his 
uncompromising support to the Test Act, and entered 
into an alliance with the Country party in the House 
of Commons. In November, 1673, he was ordered 
to deliver up the Seals, and though very soon 
afterwards Charles, perceiving the mistake he had 
committed, offered him a dukedom and any office 
he might desire, while Louis XIV., through Ruvigny, 
offered him a bribe of 10,000 guineas, he refused all 
proposals for an accommodation, and placed himself 
openly at the head of the Country party, whose move- 
ments he directed from the Lords with all the skill 
of a modern party-leader. 

Shaftesbury despaired of bringing the House of 
Commons, elected as it had been immediately after 
the Restoration in a moment of religious and political 
reaction, to any steady opposition to the Crown, and 

* J. R. Green, " History of the English People." 



250 RIVAL SULTANAS 

he was anxious at all costs to bring about a dissolu- 
tion. With a new House, which really represented 
the feelings of the constituencies, he was determined 
to force on Charles his brother's exclusion from the 
throne, for he foresaw that, with a Catholic King 
like James, convinced of his Divine Right and bigoted 
in his religious fervour, no securities for the main- 
tenance of the Protestant faith would be of any value. 
His resolve was justified by the Revolution, which 
finally did the work which he proposed to do. 
Unhappily, he did not scruple to fight with any weapon, 
however vile, so long as it promised to be an effective 
one. 

And such a weapon lay ready to his hand in the 
panic which had now seized upon the country. The 
temptation to use it to get rid of James and the 
Catholic succession was irresistible, for the cry of 
exclusion followed naturally upon that of the " Plot." 
According to Burnet, he declared that the evidence 
must be supported, and, however that may be, there 
can be little doubt that he made it his business 
to procure the evidence of informers and to hound 
them on by threats or bribery. " I mightily suspect 
that that old knave hath been guilty of many 
subornations in the management of the Popish Plot," 
observed Bishop Prideaux two years later. 

Shaftesbury's " management " of the agitation, on 
its political side, was characterized by a ruthless energy. 
On November 4, 1678, the great attack was opened, 
at his instigation, by Lord Russell, in the Commons, 
who moved and carried an address to the King 
praying him to remove the Duke of York from his 



THE POPISH PLOT 251 

person and counsels. On November 20, Shaftesbury 
carried a bill in the Lords, disabling all Roman 
Catholics from sitting in either House, an amendment 
exempting James from its operation only escaping 
defeat by two votes in the Commons. This exclusion 
remained in force for a century and a half. 

Meanwhile, five Catholic peers — the Earl of Powis, 
Viscount Stafford, and Lords Arundel of Wardour, 
Belassis and Petre, accused by Oates of complicity in 
the " Plot," had been arrested and sent to the 
Tower, while the prisons were crowded with suspected 
persons. Encouraged by his success, the informer 
struck at the highest game, and on November 24 he 
denounced the Queen before Secretary Coventry as 
privy to a design of poisoning the King — an accusation 
which he had the effrontery to repeat four days later 
before Charles himself in Council and at the Bar of the 
House of Commons. Monstrous as the charge may 
appear, it found ready acceptance in the Commons, 
who carried an address to the King praying him to 
remove her Majesty from his person and counsels. 
The Lords refused to agree ; but, to their eternal 
disgrace, Shaftesbury and two other peers signed a 
protest against their action. 

The fresh " revelations " of Oates and a rival in 
infamy named Bedloe, who swore to the existence 
j of a plot for the landing of a Catholic army and a 
general massacre of the Protestants, roused Parliament 
and people to renewed frenzy. The peers under 
arrest were ordered to be impeached ; a royal pro- 
clamation enjoined the arrest of every Catholic in 
the realm ; and the condemnation and barbarous 



252 RIVAL SULTANAS 

execution of Coleman, after a mockery of a trial, was 
the signal for a succession of judicial murders which 
has left an indelible stain on English justice. In fact, 
for some time, it was useless for the accused to hope 
for anything approaching a fair trial ; and the Lord 
Chief-Justice, Scroggs, lent himself shamelessly to 
uphold the perjuries of the informers.* 

Charles II. was terrified. His Catholic mistresses 
forgot their quarrels in the face of this common 
danger. Already Oates had denounced the Duchesse 
de Mazarin as " an accomplice of all the designs 
against the Protestant religion." " Yesterday," wrote 
the Duke of York to William of Orange on October 29, 
1678, " Madame de Mazarin was accused by the same 
man ; when he will make an end of accusing people, 
the Lord knows ! " Louise de Keroualle, who had a 
Catholic priest attached to her household as chaplain, 
felt that her unpopularity marked her out for attack, 
and that, in such a crisis, the King, whom she saw 
prepared for any submissions, would be incapable of 
protecting her. She began seriously to consider the 
advisability of abandoning the field and returning 
to France. 

• " Have no fear, Mr. Coleman," remarked this personage, at the opening 
of Coleman's trial, " you will not be condemned unless your crimes are proved. 
We shall not act like you, who wish to assassinate us." Thus, the Lord Chief 
Justice of England regarded as admitted, before any evidence had been given, 
the imaginary crime which the false witnesses had invented. 

It is, we fear, with only too much justification that a French historian has 
observed : " It is a strange thing that the English nation, the most imbued with 
the idea of justice, the most respectful towards the Law, the most meticulous 
observer of its forms, is also that which has furnished, not only the greatest 
number of servile judges, but also the most revolting examples of judicial 
iniquity." 



THE POPISH PLOT 253 

" Madame de Portsmouth," writes Barrillon, at the 
beginning of December, " has spoken to me as though 
she were not sure of remaining here. There are many 
persons who are anxious to name her in the Parliament. 
She affected to tell me that she did not regard the 
prospect of her retirement to France as a great mis- 
fortune ; that your Majesty had caused her to be 
given by milord Sunderland* assurances of his bene- 
volence and protection ; that she would not desire that 
her -presence should injure or cause embarrassment 
to the King [Charles], and that she should prefer to 
withdraw while she still possessed some share in his 
good graces, as she might perhaps be attacked at a 
time when the King would not have for her all the 
consideration that he has at present."! 

Charles II. has found apologists for most of the 
actions of his life. His concurrence in the savage acts 
of oppression by which the Church signalized her 
triumph over the Nonconformists at the beginning 
of the Restoration ; his abandonment of his faithful 
Minister Clarendon ; the diversion of the supplies 
voted by Parliament for national purposes into the 
coffers of his rapacious concubines ; his disgraceful 
subservience to the ambition of Louis XIV. and all 
the long course of trickery and deceit which that sub- 
servience involved ; his delivery of the Covenanters 
of Scotland to the tender mercies of the brutal Lauder- 
dale — all these things, and many like them, have been 
palliated with more or less want of success. But no 

• The Earl of Sunderland had, as we have mentioned, replaced Ralph Montagu 
as British Ambassador in Paris in the summer of 1678. 

I Barrillon to Louis XIV., December 1, 1678, cited by M. Forneron. 



254 RIVAL SULTANAS 

one — no one, at least, whose name carries the smallest 
weight — has ever yet attempted to palliate or excuse 
the almost inconceivable baseness of his conduct at 
the time of the " Popish Plot." 

" That story," observes the late Mr. Traill in his 
able monograph on Shaftesbury, " resolves itself virtu- 
ally into two propositions : first, that there was a plot 
on foot to establish the Roman Catholic religion, by 
force, if necessary, in the three kingdoms ; and, secondly, 
that there was a conspiracy hatched for the assassination 
of the King. Now, to Shaftesbury, the former of these 
propositions must have presented itself as true, but not 
new ; the latter, as new, but so utterly inconsistent 
with certain facts involved in the former that it could 
not possibly be true. That there was a conspiracy 
to set up the Roman Catholic religion in England we 
all know in these days, and Shaftesbury knew it then ; 
but he knew also, as we now know, that the King him- 
self was the chief conspirator. He knew, and had known 
for fully five years, that Charles was a party to a treaty 
by which he had bound himself to Louis XIV. to attempt 
the forcible establishment of Catholicism in England ; 
and he had probably a shrewd suspicion that Oates's 
charges were, so far as they went, merely founded on a 
belated discovery of the secret provisions of the Treaty 
of Dover. When, then, the informer asked the world 
to believe in the assassination plot as part and parcel 
of the conspiracy against Protestantism, Shaftesbury 
must have known that he was lying." 

Now, all that Mr. Traill says of Shaftesbury applies 
with tenfold force to Charles II. Charles knew Oates 
and his fellows to be lying, and, what is more, 



THE POPISH PLOT 255 

he did not attempt to conceal his knowledge, at any 
rate, from his intimates. Reresby tells us that on 
November 12, 1678, when he was with the King in the 
Duchess of Portsmouth's apartments, his Majesty was 
" very free in his discourse concerning the witnesses 
of the Popish Plot, making it clearly appear that several 
things which they gave in evidence were not only im- 
probable, but impossible. And a few days later (Novem- 
ber 21), he observed that ' Bedloe was a rogue and had 
given false evidence.' " 

And yet, though he knew those men to be liars — 
knew them to be the fabricators of one of the most 
abominable impostures ever foisted upon a nation — 
he did not stir a finger to stem the popular frenzy, and 
allowed men of whose innocence he was assured — men 
who were his co-religionists, since he was a Catholic 
in all but the name — to go, mainly through the false 
testimony of these miscreants, to mutilation and death 
without speaking the word which would have saved 
them. Nay, he went much further than that. Not 
only did he not attempt to stay the agitation, but he 
actually encouraged it. Not only did he sacrifice these 
innocent victims of a monstrous delusion to the terror 
and fury of a credulous people, but he persecuted them. 

With the money which he had lately drawn from 
Louis XIV. " for his declaration of Catholicism," he 
maintained Oates and his band of false witnesses. He 
assigned them lodgings within the precincts of his own 
palace ; he surrounded them with his guards ; he gave 
orders that extraordinary precautions should be observed 
in the preparation of their meals, lest some attempt 
should be made to poison them ; he recruited with 



256 RIVAL SULTANAS 

his money their assistants ; he paid the expenses of the 
arrest of their victims. " At the bottom of the purse 
which his mistresses drain, he finds ^ioa week for Titus 
Oates, lodged and boarded at Whitehall ; soon he in- 
creases the sum and gives him £12 a week ; he pays the 
witnesses, he pays the informers. He is not forced by 
the Protestants to incur these expenses, on the contrary, 
he conceals them. It is with the secret funds, the 
money destined for his concubines, that, out of the 
pure flattery for those whom he knows to be false wit- 
nesses and murderers, he pays ' £10 to Millicent Hanson, 
for services in seeking out priests ; * to Massall, £20 
for having arrested a priest ; ' to Dangerfield, to Titus 
Oates, in addition to their salaries, a number of gratui- 
ties for legal expenses, for the discovery of Papists con- 
cealed at the Court, as compensation for the inconveni- 
ence to which they were put in going to give their 
evidence, for information respecting the property of 
the Jesuits, or as a simple present."* 

Only in one instance did Charles display a vestige of 
chivalry : he had manhood enough to refuse to be a 
party to the persecution of his wife. 

" They think," said he, " that I have a mind to a 
new wife, but, for all that, I will not see an innocent 
woman abused." And, on another occasion, he observed 
that " she was a weak woman and had some disagreeable 
humours ; but was not capable of a wicked thing ; and, 
considering his own faultiness to her in some things, 
he thought it a horrid thing to abandon of her." 

The poor Queen, indeed, saw in him her only refuge 
against the storm ; and when he went to Newmarket 

* Forneron, Louise dt Keroualle, Ducbesse de Portsmouth. 



THE POPISH PLOT 257 

for the Spring Meeting of 1680, she followed him 
thither, declaring that she could not feel in safety save 
where the King was present to protect her. " This, 
then," observes Mr. Airy, " is the sum of what can be 
claimed for Charles : that he would not desert his wife 
at the bidding of Oates." 

What, it will be asked, is the explanation of Charles's 
conduct throughout this shameful affair ? The answer 
is contained in a single word — policy. He knew that 
if he publicly announced his dissent from what had 
become for the moment the firm conviction of the great 
majority of the nation ; if he attempted to restrain the 
popular frenzy ; if he exercised the royal prerogative 
of mercy on behalf of the condemned, the suspicions 
that already existed in many minds as to his bargain 
with Louis XIV. would be at once confirmed, and so 
furious would be the outcry against him that, if he were 
permitted to retain his throne, it would only be on the 
condition of his consenting to the exclusion of his 
brother from the succession. 

On the other hand, he foresaw that, by encouraging 
rather than repressing the agitation, by giving the 
Country party, or the Whigs, as they were now called, 
" line enough " — to borrow his own words — he would 
sooner or later bring about a strong, and possibly, a 
violent, reaction, of which he intended to take advantage 
to crush the Exclusionists and make the Shaftesburys, 
the Russells and the Sidneys pay to the uttermost 
farthing for all the humiliations to which they had 
subjected him. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE EXCLUSION BILL 



THE elections for the new Parliament were held 
in the midst of a ferment of excitement, and 
the result, as might be expected, was a complete 
triumph for the Country party. The House of 
Commons assembled (March 6, 1679) in a furious 
temper, burning with Protestant zeal and full of 
anger against Danby, who had just been created a 
marquis by the King. In his speech from the throne, 
Charles, after asking for supplies to maintain the 
Protestant attitude of the Government in foreign 
affairs, declared that he would defend the established 
religion and the laws with his life. But the Commons 
appeared to attach but little weight to his Majesty s 
assurances, and, notwithstanding that the King had 
assumed entire responsibility for the incriminating 
letters which had been written by his order, and had 
accorded Danby a free pardon, the proceedings against 
the 'Treasurer were at once resumed. Warned by a 
message from Charles, Danby fled for sanctuary to 
Whitehall, upon which the Lords passed a bill ot 
banishment against him if he did not appear before 
258 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 259 

them, but avoided naming the day. The Commons 
threw it out as too moderate, and sent up a bill of 
attainder to the Lords, which they passed (April 14) 
to take effect should Danby not surrender himself 
within seven days. On the i 7 th he gave himself up, 
and was forthwith committed to the Tower, where 
he remained for five years. 

The Commons, spurred on by Shaftesbury, con- 
tinued its violent course. To avoid the excitement 
which his presence caused, the King had persuaded 
the Duke of York to retire to Brussels. But this 
precaution availed nothing; for Shaftesbury and his 
adherents were absolutely determined on the exclusion 
of James from the throne, as the only way of securing 
the liberties of the country. 

Meanwhile, in alarm at the violence of the new 
Parliament, Charles had had recourse to Sir William 
Temple, who proposed a scheme of government which 
he hoped, might oppose a barrier to both the despotism 
of the Crown and the excesses of the Commons. His 
plan, which was accepted by the King, was the for- 
mation of a Council of Thirty, which included 
Russell Essex and other leaders of the Opposition, 
while Shaftesbury was not only admitted, but es- 
tablished as President. Without the advice of this 
Council, the King, it was understood, pledged himself 
not to act. The scheme, however, was a failure 
Ihe question of the Succession overshadoxved all 
others. Shaftesbury was earnest for the exclusion 
ol James, but as yet the majority of the Council were 
unprepared to go so far, and supported a plan which 
Charles brought forward for preserving the rights of 

i 7 * 



26o RIVAL SULTANAS 

the Duke of York, while restraining his power as 
Sovereign. This compromise Shaftesbury refused to 
consider; and a bill for depriving James of his rights 
to the Crown, and for devolving it on the next Pro- 
testant in the line of succession, was introduced into 
the Commons by his adherents and passed the House 
by a large majority. To gain time, Charles first 
prorogued and then dissolved Parliament ; and, 
apparently on the advice of the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, resolved to have recourse once more to 
Louis XIV., whose assistance might enable him to dis- 
pense with the necessity of summoning another for 
some months at least. 

At the beginning of July, the King sent word 
to Barrillon by the Duchess of Portsmouth that he 
wished to speak to him privately; and late that 
night, when everyone in the palace had retired to rest, 
the Ambassador came to the favourite's apartments 
at Whitehall, where he found Charles awaiting him. 
The Kin- told Barrillon that Louis XIV. could, if he 
wished, preserve his throne for him and attach him 
for all the rest of his life to his interests ; that the 
time for compliments and speeches was past, and that 
it was necessary for Louis to decide if it were of im- 
portance to him whether England were in future a 
republic or a monarchy, as matters had come to such 
a pass that, unless the King of France made up his 
mind to support him against his subjects nothing 
could prevent Parliament from disposing absolutely 
of questions of peace and war and the making of 
treaties with foreign States. Finally, he urged the 
Ambassador to repeat all that he had told him to his 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 261 

master, and " to beg him to take the course which 
for the rest of his [Charles's] life would make England 
dependent upon him and attach him indissoluble 
to his interests." 

Barrillon deemed the occasion opportune to 
reproach the King with his failure to keep his 
engagements to France, and reminded him of the 
marriage of his niece to William of Orange, the 
alliance with Holland, and the little confidence that 
France had hitherto been able to repose in the promised 
neutrality of England. 

Charles admitted that these reproaches were well- 
founded, though not quite just. He had not fore- 
seen all the difficulties which had arisen to prevent 
him from adhering to his engagements. He had been 
unable to resist the pressure that had been brought 
to bear upon him by his brother and Danby, who, 
to court popularity, had constantly urged him to 
adopt a policy hostile to France. He had done all 
in his power to keep faith with Louis, but circum- 
stances had been too strong for him. Anyway, the 
experience through which he had passed ought to be 
regarded by the King of France as an " entire guarantee 
for his conduct in the future," and " to inspire him 
with the belief that nothing would detach him from 
his interests." 

In an audience which Barrillon had of the King 
about a week later, the Ambassador informed him 
of the astonishment with which his master had 
learned of the number of unfortunate Catholics who 
had been sent to the scaffold without any attempt on 
the part of Charles to exercise his prerogative of 



262 RIVAL SULTANAS 

mercy. To which Charles replied that, though it 
was a great grief to him to see so much innocent 
blood shed, he could not stand between the con- 
demned and the fury of the people, " without risking 
everything." 

The reply of Louis XIV. to Charles's appeal for 
assistance was that such could only be granted in 
return for a positive engagement not to allow Parlia- 
ment to meet until the autocrat at Versailles was 
pleased to sanction it. 

Charles had no choice but to consent, and, in an 
interview with Barrillon in the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth's apartments at the end of August, declared that 
he was prepared " to bind himself not to summon a 
Parliament for several years, and only then if the King 
of France himself should consider that there was no 
danger in doing so." He was, however, profoundly 
disgusted when he learned the sum with which it was 
proposed to reward his subservience to French 
interests. For the Ambassador, having reminded him 
that the separate peace which the Parliament had 
forced him to make with Holland had been mainly 
responsible for the prolongation of the late war and 
the consequent exhaustion of the French finances, 
and that therefore he could not reasonably expect 
to be subsidized with such generosity as heretofore, 
announced that he was authorized to offer him the 
sum of 500,000 livres, in consideration of his engaging 
not to summon Parliament before March, 1680. 

Barrillon reported that Charles showed " great 
surprise at the offer of so mediocre a sum, and spoke 
with much heat concerning the extremity to which 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 263 

he was reduced of placing himself in entire dependence 
on your Majesty or allowing a free rein to the violence 
of the Lower Chamber and conforming in everything 
to its caprices." He then deputed the Duchess of 
Portsmouth to see what she could do to obtain better 
terms for him. 

Profiting by the political embarrassments in which 
the King found himself, Louise de Keroualle had 
soon succeeded in recovering her former ascendency 
over Charles; for Madame de Mazarin knew little 
and cared less about English politics, and, now that 
he had been compelled to surrender Danby to the 
animosity of the Commons, Charles stood sorely in 
need of some one of whose fidelity to himself he was 
assured. The political situation, indeed, was a most 
complicated and dangerous one, and seldom had a 
king found himself in such desperate circumstances. 
With a crown stripped of most of its prerogatives and 
nearly all its wealth, he was called upon to struggle 
against a rich and powerful party, whose strength had 
been growing steadily ever since his restoration, 
backed by an infuriated people. And this party was 
clamouring for the exclusion of the rightful heir to 
the throne from the succession and threatening to 
proceed to extremities, if he endeavoured to thwart 
its demands. 

If there was one thing outside his own ease and 
pleasure about which Charles had ever been in 
earnest, it was the question of the succession to the 
throne, for to permit the succession to be tampered 
with would be to confess himself utterly worsted in 
his struggle against the Parliament, and to encourage 



264 RIVAL SULTANAS 

it to reduce him to the most humiliating impotence 
during the remainder of his reign. Nevertheless, if 
the leaders of the Country party had been of one 
mind, they must in the end have forced the King to 
consent to the exclusion of the Duke of York and 
spared England the necessity for the Revolution of 
1688. 

But, while the wiser leaders of the party favoured the 
plan proposed by Temple, Essex and Halifax : to bring 
the Prince of Orange over to England during the 
prorogation of Parliament, to introduce him into the 
Council and to pave his way to the throne, Shaftes- 
bury contemplated a very different course. He dis- 
trusted William as a mere adherent of the Royal 
House and as opposed to any weakening of the royal 
power or invasion of the royal prerogative, and had 
resolved to set aside the claims of James and his 
children and to place the Duke of Monmouth, 
Charles's reputed son by Lucy Walter, on the throne. 
" A bad title makes a good king," he is reported to 
have said ; and he hoped to find in this young man 
a docile instrument of his ambition. 

Monmouth was a sorry sort of champion to offer 
to the Protestants. Though not without natural 
gifts, he had been treated with such fatal indulgence 
by the King, whose favourite son he was, that his 
character had been ruined, and a more worthless and 
profligate young man it would have been difficult to 
find. At the same time, he joined to the good looks 
which he had inherited from his mother, a great charm 
of manner, and this, with a reputation for personal 
courage, made him very popular with the people ; 




JAMES SCOTT, DUKE OF MONMOUTH K.G. 

Front a photograph by Emery Walker, after the picture in the Nationa 

Portrait Gallery. 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 265 

and the more extreme section of the Country party, 
regardless of his birth, began to look upon him as a 
rival to the Romanist Duke of York. So conscious 
was James of this danger that, when leaving England 
just before the meeting of the last Parliament, he had 
exacted from Charles, in the presence of the Council, 
a solemn declaration of Monmouth's illegitimacy. 
But, notwithstanding this, the legend of the black 
box which was supposed to contain the contract 
of marriage between Charles and Lucy Walter held 
its ground ; and the leniency with which Monmouth, 
in the early summer of 1679, treated the Covenanters 
of the West of Scotland, whose insurrection he had 
been sent to suppress — a leniency which was partly 
responsible for his recall — further strengthened his 
claim. 

In this policy Shaftesbury was unsupported by any 
of his colleagues, save Russell. To Temple, Essex, 
or Halifax it seemed possible to bring about the suc- 
cession of Mary without any violent revolution ; but 
to set aside, not only the rights of James, but the rights 
of his Protestant children, and even of the Prince of 
Orange, in favour of a bastard, was to render a civil 
war inevitable. 

Essex, an honest and able man, and the sincerity 
of whose Protestantism could not be doubted, joined 
with the cautious, sagacious Halifax, and the brilliant, 
dissolute Sunderland, in offering a resolute oppo- 
sition to Shaftesbury's project, the success of which, 
they foresaw, would involve their own ruin. For 
they, with Temple, had advised the dissolution of 
the last Parliament, an action which had so enraged 



266 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Shaftesbury that he threatened that they should pay 
for it with their heads. Great, therefore, was their 
alarm when, towards the end of August, the Court 
being then at Windsor, the King was suddenly attacked 
by an illness — the result of a chill caught after playing 
tennis — which for a few days threatened to be fatal. 
Their consternation, indeed, was shared by moderate 
men of all shades of opinion, and not without good 
ground, since it was afterwards discovered that, if the 
King had died at Windsor, the Monmouth party 
were prepared for a coup d'Etat, and had arranged 
to seize the Tower, Dover Castle, and Portsmouth, 
and to arrest any one who should offer to proclaim 
James. 

To counteract the designs of Shaftesbury and 
Monmouth, Halifax and Essex, with Charles's consent, 
secretly summoned the Duke of York from Brussels. 
He reached Windsor on September 2, and was received 
by the King with the most admirably feigned astonish- 
ment. But scarcely had he arrived, when the King's 
illness took a decided turn for the better, his physicians 
having, according to Barrillon, at length permitted 
him to take " the remedy of the Chevalier Talbor 
(sic), which is nothing else than quinine ; " and it was 
thought advisable to quiet popular feeling by sending 
the duke out of the country again without delay. This 
time, however, he was allowed to go to Scotland, 
instead of to Brussels, to take command of the troops 
engaged in the suppression of the Covenanters, whom 
he treated with a cruelty which would alone have 
rendered his name odious to Protestants. At the same 
time, Charles deprived Monmouth of his charge of 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 267 

Captain-General of the Forces and ordered him, like 
James, to leave the realm. 

The King made steady progress towards recovery, 
and by the end of September, notwithstanding the 
opposition of his doctors, set out for Newmarket. 
Soon he had resumed all his old habits, but he does 
not seem to have recovered his full health or spirits, 
and in December one of the Verney family wrote : 
" The girls tell mee the King looks so very ill as it 
greeved them to see him, and came in twice, but spoke 
to none but my lord Fevarsome [Feversham], who 
came in with him ; they never saw man have more 
discontent and disorder in his looks than the King 
had."* 

Meantime, the secret negotiations with France had 
been continued, and Louise de Keroualle, on Charles's 
behalf, had intimated to Barrillon that the sum offered 
by Louis XIV. was utterly inadequate for his Majesty's 
necessities and demanded a large annual subsidy. " I 
am seeing Madame de Portsmouth, to whom the King 
has confided all the negotiations," writes the Am- 
bassador to his master. " She informs me that, if 
your Majesty is willing to give four million a year 
for four years, the King would be willing to enter 
into all the engagements that your Majesty would 
desire ; but that, without this sum, it would be 
impossible for him not to assemble the Parliament. 
The King told me yesterday evening that he was 
ashamed and experienced a mortal displeasure at being 
reduced to drive a bargain with your Majesty." 

The bargain, however, was not completed, Louis 

* Letter cited by Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 



268 RIVAL SULTANAS 

being of opinion that, in all the circumstances, Charles 
was demanding far too much. He was alarmed at 
the hostile feeling of the English people towards 
France and anxious to delay the assembling of a new 
Parliament ; but he feared that, after the recall of the 
Duke of York and the sending of Monmouth out of 
the kingdom, Charles would be obliged to conciliate 
the Country party by summoning Parliament within 
a reasonable time, and he therefore decided that it 
would be safer, and a good deal cheaper, to perpetuate 
the quarrel between the King and the Commons by 
continuing to subsidize the Opposition. 

The attitude of Louise de Keroualle during the 
summer and autumn of 1679 was a somewhat singular 
one. Aware of the influence which she exercised 
over the King, all parties were naturally anxious to 
enlist her sympathies, and, since her object was to 
assure her own safety whichever ultimately triumphed, 
she appears to have coquetted with each in turn. 
" The Diary and Correspondence of Henry Sidney," 
afterwards Earl of Romney, who was a staunch 
supporter of the Prince of Orange, affords some inter- 
esting information concerning the lady's manoeuvres : 

"June 21 [1679] — The Duchess of Portsmouth is 
mightily his [the Prince of Orange's] friend, and a 
great support to our party." 

" June 22 — We begin to be very apprehensive of the 
French Ambassador making some offer that might 
hinder the project of the guarantee : he was very 
busy with the Duchess of Portsmouth." 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 269 

"June 26 — Lord Halifax tells me that the Duchess 
of Portsmouth was unsatisfied with the Prince and 
desires me to advise him to write to her, for that she 
would be of great use to us against the Duke of Mon- 
mouth ; and I am to let him know how instrumental 
she hath been in changing the Council and in several 
other things. In short, I am to tell him that she is 
one that Lord Sunderland does make use of, and that 
he must do so too, if he intends to do any good with 
the King.* She hath more power over him than can 
be imagined." 

" June 27 — At night, the Duchess of Portsmouth 
and I had some discourse together of Mr. Harbord 
[Mr. Harbord was a partisan of the Prince of Orange 
and in favour of the scheme for making William 
Protector of the Kingdom, in the event of the Duke 
of York's succession]. She said she did not like to 
make advances to Harbord. I told her I hoped she 
would receive them well, if they were made to her. 
She then fell to making several expressions of kindness 
to the Prince, and told me she believed he and several 
others loved her the worse, because they thought her 
too much in the interest of France. She confessed 

* But, according to the Countess of Sunderland, it was the Duchess of 
Portsmouth who was making use of the Minister. In a letter to her friend 
Henry Sidney written in January, 1679, she expresses her fear that " that 
abominable jade " — as she styles the favourite — will end by seriously compromis- 
ing her husband by her intrigues with France. The countess detested Louise, 
for in another of her letters to Henry Sidney she informs him that " the Duchess 
of Portsmouth is more of a jade than ever ... to everybody and in every 

particular ; " and in a third declares that the aforesaid lady " is so d d a jade 

that it is but folly to hope [i.e. for her good offices on behalf of the Prince of 
Orange] ; for she will certainly sell us, whenever she can, for £500." 



270 RIVAL SULTANAS 

that she had so much kindness to her own country 
that she would be glad to do it any good, but, where 
it came into any competition with England, she would 
show that she thought her stake here was much greater 
than there." 

" July 14 — At my taking leave of the Duchess of 
Portsmouth, she said a great deal of her readiness to 
do the Prince any service." 

" October 1 — The Duchess, I find, is not well with 
the Prince, but extremely well with the Duke [of 
York]. " 

" November 17 — When I took my leave of the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, she bade me tell the Prince 
that she was more his friend than he imagined. She 
is absolutely in with the Duke [of Monmouth]. Mrs. 
Wall loves him above all things :* he would have 
given her 500 guineas, but she refused it. All the 
Duke's servants are very elevated. This night there 
were great marks of joy and burning of a Pope, where 
there was 200,000 people." 

The new election had not altered the complexion 
of the Parliament : indeed, thanks to the new tales of 
massacre and invasion with which Shaftesbury had been 

* This Mrs. Wall was confidential servant to the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
and, consequently, a personage of considerable importance at the Court. Mr. 
Mountstevens, writing to Henry Sidney under date April 2, 1680, suggests to 
him the expediency of congratulating this lady upon her appointment to the 
post of laundress [i.e. keeper of the linen-closet] to the King, which her patroness 
had obtained for her. 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 271 

busily feeding the constituencies, its members were 
even more violent than those of the House which 
had recently been dissolved. However, Charles had 
not failed to mark the breach which Shaftesbury's 
policy had made in the ranks of the Country party, 
and this, notwithstanding the failure of his financial 
negotiations with Louis XIV., emboldened him, not 
only to postpone the assembling of Parliament, which 
should have met in October, until January, 1680, but 
to remove the earl from the post of Lord President 
of the Council. 

At midnight on November 27, Monmouth, though 
he had sought in vain to obtain the royal permission 
for his return, reappeared in London, where he was 
received with great popular rejoicings. The King 
refused to see him, dismissed him from his captaincy 
of the Guards and all his remaining offices, and ordered 
him to leave London at once. Nell Gwyn, who had 
always been on good terms with the duke and never 
forgot a friend, interceded for him, and " begg'd hard 
of his Majesty to see him, telling him he was grown 
pale, wan, lean, and long visaged, merely because he 
was in disfavour ; but the King bid her be quiet, for he 
would not see him."* 

Notwithstanding the paternal orders, Monmouth held 
his ground, though he quitted Whitehall for his own 
house in Hedge Lane, declaring that he would live 
on his wife's fortune. In the meantime, he made 
the most of his opportunities, worshipping at St. 

• Verney Papers, cited by Mr. Wheatley, Introduction to Cunningham's 
Nell Gwyn (edit. 1903). 



272 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Martin's Church, so as to provoke public demon- 
strations of sympathy, and paying his court to Nell 
Gwyn, whose persuasions would, he believed, sooner or 
later, induce Charles to relent. " There is happening 
here," writes Barrillon, on December 14, to Louis XIV., 
" a thing which would appear very extraordinary 
in another country. The Due de Monmouth sups 
almost every evening at Nelly's house ; she is the 
actress by whom the King has two children and whom 
he goes to visit every day." And two days later 
the Countess of Sunderland writes to Henry Sidney : 
" He [Monmouth] pays great court to Nelly, and is 
shut up with her in her closet when the King comes, 
from which in time he expects great things." 

Some persons affected to see in Nell Gwyn's efforts 
to reconcile Monmouth and the King a proof of her 
desire to identify herself closely with the Protestant 
movement. But it appears to have been merely the 
outcome of her good-nature, and the kindness with 
which she was afterwards treated by James II. is suffi- 
cient evidence that she had never used her influence 
with the King to prejudice him against his brother. 
Indeed, it is doubtful if she regarded Monmouth's 
extravagant ambitions very seriously, as she is said to 
have called him " Prince Perkin " to his face, and, 
when the duke replied that she was " ill-bred," to have 
smilingly inquired whether "Mrs. Barlow"* was any 
better bred. 

Although Nell never lent herself to the intrigues of 
the Opposition, the London mob, nevertheless, seemed 

* Mrs. Barlow was the name which Monmouth's mother, Lucy Walter, 
had assumed in her later years. 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 273 

to have regarded her as one of the champions of the 
established faith, and spoke of her affectionately as 
" Protestant Nell." On the other hand, the Duchess 
of Portsmouth — or " Madame Carwell," as the people 
called her, being both a Papist and a Frenchwoman, 
was more unpopular than ever ; indeed, with the single 
exception of the Duke of York, she was probably the 
best-hated individual in the three kingdoms. In the 
previous April she had been reflected upon by name 
in both Houses of Parliament, though no further steps 
had been taken against her ; and towards the end of 
December, Barrillon informed Louis XIV. that he was 
given to understand that, when the new Parliament 
met, it was intended to demand her removal and that 
of Sunderland from the Court, and that it was quite 
probable that they would be brought to trial with 
Danby and the Catholic peers imprisoned in the Tower, 
and possibly condemned and executed. 

The duchess appears to have been much alarmed, 
and, in the hope of conciliating her enemies, dismissed 
all her Roman Catholic servants ; while there can be 
little doubt that she used all her influence with Charles 
to secure a further prorogation of the new Parliament. 
Any way, to the intense indignation of the Opposition, 
the King, instead of allowing Parliament to meet in 
January, prorogued to November, and, though bom- 
, barded with petitions to reconsider his decision from 
I all over the country, which had been prepared in 
; accordance with instructions from Shaftesbury's Lon- 
i don office, he remained firm. " I look on myself," 
said he to the petitioners from London and West- 
minster, " as the head of the Government, and mean 

18 



274 RIVAL SULTANAS 

to do what I think best for myself and my people ; " 
while to the deputation from Berkshire, he observed 
with that urbanity which seldom failed to disarm re- 
sentment : " We will argue the matter over a cup of 
ale when we meet at Windsor, though I wonder that 
my neighbours should meddle with my business/' 

Charles's firmness did not go unrewarded. The tide 
of opinion was already beginning to turn. The spell 
of the hideous imposture which had for so many months 
enslaved the nation had been broken by the acquittal, 
in the previous July, of Wakeman, the Queen's physician, 
and others who had been indicted with him ; and, 
anxious as the people were for a Protestant sovereign, 
their sense of justice revolted against the monstrous 
wrong of setting aside James's Protestant children to 
put the Crown of England on the head of a bastard. 
The stream of petitions which Shaftesbury had pro- 
cured was answered by a 'counter-stream of addresses 
from thousands who declared their " abhorrence " of 
his plans against the Crown ; and the country was 
divided into two great factions of " Petitioners " and 
" Abhorrers," the germs of the two great parties of 
" Whigs " and " Tories." 

Profiting by the turn affairs were taking, Charles 
recalled the Duke of York ; and when, in consequence 
of this step, Essex, Russell and two other Whig leaders, 
requested permission to retire from the Council, 
accorded it " with all his heart." He also, although 
now reconciled to Monmouth, caused the declaration 
in which he solemnly denied that he had ever been 
married to any other woman than the Queen to be 
published. 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 275 

Shaftesbury and Monmouth were not slow to re- 
taliate. On June 26, 1680, Shaftesbury and other 
leaders of his party appeared before the Grand Jury of 
Middlesex at Westminster Hall, and " presented " 
James as a Popish recusant, and the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth is " a common nuisance." The judges, however, 
managed to discharge the jury before either case came 
on ; and the move was a failure. In August, Monmouth, 
doubtless at Shaftesbury's instigation, set out on a sort 
of quasi-royal progress through the south-western 
counties, where he was received with the utmost enthu- 
siasm. On his return to London in October, he kept 
away from the Court, but appeared in the City on Lord 
Mayor's Day, and was welcomed with loud acclamations. 

On October 21, 1680, the new Parliament at length 
met. The Opposition arrived at Westminster with 
French gold jingling in their pockets ; for Louis XIV., 
irritated by Charles's attitude towards the Grand 
Alliance which William of Orange was building up 
against him, and by a treaty which England had recently 
concluded with Spain for resistance to France, had 
decided to support the Monmouth-Shaftesbury faction 
by profuse bribery, in which he included not only 
members of Parliament, but City merchants and the 
chief Presbyterian preachers.* " Separate the Parlia- 
ment and the Court, stir up strife, sow division." Such 
were the instructions which Louis sent to Barrillon. 
So long as Charles and his Parliament were at logger- 

* We learn from Barrillon' s accounts, cited by M. Forneron, that from the 
early summer of 1680 up to the dissolution of Charles's third Parliament in 
January, 1681, Ralph Montagu received 50,000 livres ; Hampden and Herbert 
1,000 guineas each ; while sums of 500 guineas were paid to Algernon Sidney 
and six other persons, and ten pocketed 300 guineas apiece. 

18* 



276 RIVAL SULTANAS 

heads, and the question of the Succession occupied 
the minds of the nation, he had nothing to fear from 
England. 

It was observed at the opening of Parliament that 
Charles seemed in a very ill humour, a fact which may 
have been attributable to the conduct of the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, who had openly allied herself to Mon- 
mouth and Shaftesbury, and declared for exclusion. 
The Memoirs of James II. give the following explana- 
tion of this new move on the favourite's part : } . ■ 

" The Dutchesse of Portsmouth was frighted into a 
reconciliation, and did it so effectively as to become 
even a patron to her pretended prosecutors, to give 
them private meetings, particularly the Duke of Mon- 
mouth, and, in order to shew her new friends her zeal 
for their service, did all she could to enforce their coun- 
sels, which, were for removing the Duke from Court 
again, and assigned for a reason of her couldness to him 
that the Dutchesse [of York] had not shown her so much 
respect or markes of kindness as she thought her due : 
This was but a fresh excuse, the true motive was security 
and interest,* (which generally are the only idols such 
persons offer incense too) that influenced her in that 
affair ; for those generous principles of supporteing 
oppress' d innocency make but a weak impression upon 
persons of that character. Shaftesbury's cunning, there- 
fore, on this occasion deceiv'd him not, tho hers did 
in the end, for he, by seeming to declare war against 
this mercenary woman, frighted her into an alliance 
with him against the Duke [of York], and she, haveing 

* J. S. Clarke, " Life of James the Second, collected out of memoirs writ of 
his own hand" (1816). 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 277 

the greatest influence over the King, was the enemy 
of all others that worked his Highness the greatest 
mischief." 

Burnet asserts that she was induced to support the 
Exclusion Bill because she had been induced to believe 
that it would lead to her son, the Duke of Richmond, 
being declared the King's successor. " Her behaviour 
in this matter," he says, " was unaccountable : and 
the duke's behaviour to her afterwards looked liker an 
rcknouldgment than a resentment. Many refined 
upon it, and thought she was set on as a decoy to keep 
the party up to the exclusion, that they might not 
hearken to the limitations. The duke was assured that 
the King would not grant the one : and so she was 
artificially managed to keep them from the other, to 
which the King would have consented, and of which 
the duke was most afraid. But this was too fine.* She 
was hearty for the exclusion : of which I had this par- 
ticular account from Montagu, who, I believe, might 
be the person who laid the bait for her. It was proposed 
to her that, if she could bring the King to the exclusion, 
and to some other popular things, the Parliament would 
go next to prepare a bill for securing the King's person, 
in which a clause might be carried, that the King might 
declare the successor to the Crown, as had been done 
in Henry the Eighth's time. This would very much 
raise the King's authority, and would be no breach with 
the prince of Orange, but would rather oblige him to 
a greater dependence on the King. The Duke of 

• " Many of James's letters," observes Mr. Osmund Airy, " prove that he was 
on very ill terms with her at the time, and looked upon her and her cabal as 
the most dangerous enemies he had." — Note to Burnet (Clarendon Press edition). 



278 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Monmouth would certainly be for this clause, since he 
could have no prospect any other way ; and he would 
please himself with the hopes of being preferred by the 
King to any other person. But, since the lady Ports- 
mouth found she was so absolutely the mistress of the 
King's spirit, she might reckon that, if such an act could 
be carried, the King would be prevailed on to declare 
her son his successor : yet it was suggested to her that, 
in order to the strengthening of her son's interest, she 
ought to treat for a match with the King of France's 
natural daughter, now the duchess of Bourbon. And 
thus the duke of Monmouth and she were brought to 
an agreement to carry on the exclusion, and that other 
act persueant to it : and they thought they were making 
tools of one another, to carry on their own ends. . . . 
Montagu assured me that she not only acted heartily 
in the matter, but she once drew the King to consent to 
it, if he might have had .£800,000 for it, and that was 
afterwards brought down to .£600,000. But the jealous- 
ies upon the King himself were such, that the managers 
in the house of commons durst not move for giving 
money till the bill of exclusion should pass, lest they 
should have lost their credit by such a motion : and the 
King would not trust them. So near was the point 
brought to an agreement, if Montagu told me true." 

In his speech from the throne, Charles, in the hope 
of propitiating the Commons, bade them pursue those 
concerned in the " Popish Plot," although at the very 
time he was denouncing its absurdity to Reresby ; 
and, with revolting cynicism, threw to them, as it were, 
the Catholic lords imprisoned in the Tower.* But, 

* Mr. Osmund Airy, " Charles II." 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 279 

at the same time, he made it abundantly clear that he 
would permit no tampering with the succession. His 
refusal roused the Commons, elected as they had been 
in the very heat of the panic and irritated by the long 
delay in calling them together, to fury ; and, after 
passing a series of violent resolutions, the Exclusion 
Bill was brought in and passed without a division 
(November 11). Four days later the bill was taken 
to the Lords by Russell, followed by most of the 
Commons and by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. 

So resolute was the temper of the Lower House, that 
in the Lords even Temple and Essex gave their support 
to the measure ; but Halifax stood firm, and his influence 
secured its rejection. 

The exasperated Commons voted an address to the 
King demanding the dismissal of Halifax, whom they 
now hated even more than they had hated Danby. 
To which his Majesty blandly replied that " he doth 
not find the grounds in the Address of this House to 
be sufficient to induce him to remove the Earl of 
Halifax." He was resolved, as he told Reresby, never 
to part with any Minister at the request of either 
House. " My father," said he, " lost his head by 
that compliance, but, as for me, I will die another way." 

The Commons were, however, allowed to have their 
way in regard to the imprisoned Catholic peers, and 
the old Lord Stafford * was solemnly brought to trial 
before the Lords. According to Reresby, the reason 
of his selection was that he was " deemed weaker than 
the other lords in the Tower and less able to labour 

* William Howard, first Viscount Stafford, fifth son of Thomas, Earl of 
Arundel and Surrej. 



280 RIVAL SULTANAS 

his defence ; " while Burnet adds that he was " dis- 
liked even by his own relatives." Charles was present 
throughout the whole of the proceedings ; while the 
Duchess of Portsmouth sat in the Hall chatting gaily 
with her new friends of the Opposition, who crowded 
round her to pay their court. Stafford made an unex- 
pectedly courageous and able defence ; but it was 
to no purpose ; and, after one of the most shameful 
travesties of justice in English history, he was sentenced 
to death, his own relatives voting against him. The 
King, faithful to the cynical policy which he had 
followed from the beginning of the Plot of " leaving 
all to the laws," refused once more to exercise his pre- 
rogative of mercy, except so far as to remit the hideous 
barbarities which at this period accompanied an exe- 
cution for treason. Even this act of clemency was 
sufficient to evoke a fierce protest from the Commons, 
with which, it is to be noted, Russell associated himself. 
The mere death of this innocent old man was not 
sufficient to appease their ferocity ; they wanted him 
tortured as well. 

It would seem that the Duchess of Portsmouth's 
sympathy with the Whigs was more apparent than 
real, and that Shaftesbury had reason to suspect the 
sincerity of her professions. Any way, a few days after 
the trial of Stafford, the King being present, he fell 
upon the scandal of the duchess's influence at Court 
in the course of a violent speech in the Lords, although, 
as he was well aware, this was a point upon which 
Charles was more likely to be sensitive than upon any 
other. " If," said he, in answer to the criticisms of an 
opponent, " I must speak of them {i.e. the " chargeable " 



THE EXCLUSION BILL 28l 

ladies at Court), I shall say as the prophet did to King 
Saul : < What meaneth the bleating of the cattle ? ' 
And I hope the King will return the same answer, 
that he reserves them for sacrifice, and means to deliver 
them up to please his people. For there must be, in 
plain English, my lords, a change. We must have 
neither Popish wife, nor Popish mistress, nor Popish 
councillor at Court, nor any new convert." 

Such outrageous insolence as this must have been 
difficult for even the most easy-going of monarchs 
to endure; but at that moment Charles was more 
exercised over the fact that, though the Commons 
had been sitting for two months, they had not yet 
condescended to vote a single penny, and that there 
was "scarce bread for the King's family." On 
December 15 he reminded them of this omission, 
urging the want of funds for the preservation of Tangier. 
The Commons expressed their readiness to grant supply, 
conditional on his Majesty consenting to the Exclusion 
Bill. The King repeated his refusal to alter the succes- 
sion, upon which the Commons passed a series of resolu- 
tions, reaffirming the necessity of the Duke of York's 
exclusion and their determination not to grant supply 
until the King agreed to it, and declaring all the advisers 
of the royal message to be "pernicious counsellors, 
promoters of Popery, and enemies of the King and the 
Kingdom." 

The deadlock was complete, and once more Charles 
resolved upon a prorogation. The Commons, getting 
wind of his intentions, assembled in a state of fierce 
excitement (January 10) and were proceeding to pass 
further violent resolutions, when they were interrupted 



282 RIVAL SULTANAS 

by the arrival of Black Rod, to summon them to the 
Upper House, where Parliament was formally pro- 
rogued from the ioth to the 20th. The Lord Mayor 
and Aldermen petitioned that his Majesty would not 
only allow Parliament to meet upon the appointed 
day, but to continue sitting until it had secured religion 
and the safety of the kingdom. To which Charles 
replied by promptly transforming the prorogation into 
a dissolution (January 18). 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 

/^HARLES followed up this blow by dismissing the 
^■^^ leading Exclusionists from the Council, among 
them being the Duchess of Portsmouth's ally, Sunder- 
land, who, after long opposing Shaftesbury, had ended 
by giving him his support, as had the favourite. Sun- 
derland was punished with special severity, since, not 
only was he deprived of his post of Secretary of State, 
but he was not allowed to receive from his successor 
any part of the sum which, according to custom, he 
had paid for it. The King then announced that the next 
Parliament, which he had summoned for March 21, 
would meet not at Westminster, but at Oxford. By 
this sagacious move he intended, not only to remove 
the session from London, where Shaftesbury and the 
Whigs were supreme, to a town remarkable for its 
loyalty to the Crown, but, by reviving memories of the 
Great Rebellion, to frighten the country into reaction 
by the dread of civil war. A deputation from the 
House of Lords, headed by Shaftesbury and Essex, 
waited upon the King to protest against this change 
283 



284 RIVAL SULTANAS 

of venue, but were coldly informed by his Majesty 
that he regarded their petition " only as the opinion 
of so many men." 

It was certain that Charles would not have acted 
thus boldly had not he once more contrived to render 
himself independent of the assistance of Parliament. 
The session of 1680 had made it clear to Louis XIV. 
that nothing could permanently oppose the course of 
the national hatred against France, for, notwithstanding 
the bribes which Barrillon had so freely distributed 
among the Opposition, expressions of the bitterest 
hostility were constantly finding their way into the 
speeches and resolutions of the Commons. He had 
therefore decided that it would be more advisable 
to support Charles against the Parliament than the 
Parliament against Charles, and in November, 1680, the 
negotiations which had fallen through in the previous 
year were resumed. On this occasion, it was Louis 
who made the first overtures, through Barrillon ; but 
Charles had not forgotten the manner in which his 
brother monarch had received his almost pathetic 
appeal for assistance fourteen months before, and the 
hard bargain which, presuming on his necessities, he 
had tried to drive with him, and he was resolved to 
make his own terms. To the surprise and mortifica- 
tion of Louis, he hung back, and it was not until 
some weeks later, on the eve of the dissolution of his 
third Parliament, that he informed Barrillon that he 
was willing to consider his master's proposals. Even 
then he did not appear to be in any particular hurry 
to come to terms ; and, by skilfully prolonging the | 
negotiations, finally managed to extract from Louis 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 285 

a promise of a subsidy of two million livres for the 
next two years, and four hundred thousand crowns for 
each of the two succeeding years, in return for which 
he pledged himself to disengage himself gradually from 
the Spanish alliance and to resist any attempt on the 
part of the Parliament to drive him into war with 
France. This agreement was unwritten, and no one but 
the Treasurer, Lawrence Hyde, Clarendon's younger 
son, was allowed to share the secret. For, though, 
since Shaftesbury's attack upon her in the House of 
Lords, the Duchess of Portsmouth had terminated 
her short-lived alliance with the Whigs, she had 
apparently not yet recovered Charles's full confidence. 
His affection she had never lost, which is a strong 
argument in favour of the supposition that fear rather 
than interest had caused her to side with the 
Exclusionists. 

The subsidy promised him by Louis rendered 
Charles independent of Parliamentary aids for at least 
two years, and feeling that he could now afford to 
stand firm against the Exclusion Bill or any other 
unacceptable demand of his faithful Commons, and 
continue his old game of " kicking them from one 
stair to another " until his funds were exhausted, he 
repaired to Oxford with a light heart and a deter- 
mination to carry matters with a high hand. The 
courtiers, unaware that the royal coffers would 
shortly be bursting with French gold, wondered to see 
the King so gay, for Shaftesbury had so skilfully en- 
gineered the elections that a House had been returned 
even more prepared to go to extreme lengths than the 
last. It looked, indeed, very much like the beginning 



286 RIVAL SULTANAS 

of civil war, for Charles had considered it advisable 
to bring a strong detachment of troops with him — 
in order to encourage this belief, according to some 
authorities, though others affirm that there was a 
plot on foot to kidnap the King, carry him back to 
London and make terms with him there — and Shaftes- 
bury and the other Whig leaders arrived accompanied 
by bands of armed retainers, with blue bows and 
ribbons inscribed with " No Popery ! " " No Slavery ! " 
in their hats. Since the days of the Civil War, when 
the first Charles had held his Court at Oxford, the 
grey old city had had no such invaders of its ancient 
peace. 

The King arrived on March 14, and met with a 
reception which must have assured him that, what- 
ever the sentiments of the town, the University was 
as loyal as it had been in his father's time. 

" All the way the King passed," writes one eye- 
witness, " were such shoutings, acclamations and 
ringing of bells, made by loyal hearts and smart lads 
of the layetie of Oxon, that the aire was so pierced 
that the clouds seemed to divide. The general cry 
was ' Long live King Charles ! ' and many, drawing 
up to the very coach-window, cryed, * Let the King 
live, and the devill hang up all roundheads ' ; at which 
his Majestie smiled and seemed well pleased. The 
throng and violence of the people to express their 
affection were such that the coach was scarse able to 
pass. The youths were all on fire. . . . Their hats 
did continually fly, and seriouslie had you been there, 
you would have thought that they would have thrown 
away their verie heads and leggs. Here was an arm 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 287 

for joy flung out, and there a legg displaced, but by 
what art they ever found their way back let the R. S.* 
telle you. ... At the King's comming into the most 
spatious quadrangle of Christ Church, what by the 
shouts and the melodious ringing of the ten statelie 
bells there, the college sounded and the buildings did 
learn from its scholars to echo forth his Majestie's 
welcome. You might have heard it ring againe and 
againe : ' Welcome ! welcome ! ! thrice welcome ! ! 
Charles the great ! ' 

" After nine at night were bonfires made in several 
streets, wherein were only wanting rumps and cropt 
eares to make the flame burne merrily ; and at some 
were tables of refection erected by our burning youths, 
who, being e'en mad with joy, forced all that passed 
by to carouse on their knees a health to their beloved 
Charles."! 

The King and Court took up their residence at 
Christ Church ; Shaftesbury found rooms at Balliol, 
to which college, on leaving, he presented a handsome 
gift of plate, in recognition of the hospitality he had 
received ; while Monmouth, who arrived on the 22nd, 
" with thirty persons in attendance, as well servants as 
gentlemen," J lodged at the house of Alderman Wright, 
the leader of the Oxford Whigs. 

Both the Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwyn 
had accompanied the King to Oxford. The story 
goes that one day the latter, while driving through 
the town in one of the royal coaches, encountered a 

* The Royal Society. 

f " The Life and Times of Anthony Wood, antiquary of Oxford, 1632-1695.' 

I Ibid. 



288 RIVAL SULTANAS 

mob of Whig sympathizers, who, mistaking her for 
the Catholic mistress, began to hoot and pelt her. 
Upon which Nell, putting her pretty, impudent face 
out of the window, cried : " Pray, good people, 

be civil ; I am the Protestant ! " And the 

rabble, laughing and cheering, made way for the coach 
to pass. 

On March 21st, 1681, the shortest-lived of all 
English Parliaments — shorter by a fortnight than the 
Short Parliament of Charles I. — was opened by the 
King in an admirable speech, which, if somewhat 
threatening, was dignified and reasonable. Having 
informed his hearers that he had dissolved the last 
Parliament, because " he, who would never use 
arbitrary government himself, was resolved not to suffer 
it in others," and pointed out that " his summoning 
them to assemble so soon was a proof that the irregu- 
larity of their proceedings had not made him out of 
love with them," he declared that he intended to 
adhere to the determination he had so often expressed 
to maintain the succession inviolate. At the same 
time, if means could be found which, in the event of 
the succession of the Duke of York, would ensure 
the administration of the government remaining in 
Protestant hands, he would be most willing to con- 
sider any such expedient. And Halifax, in the Lords, 
brought forward a proposal that James should be King 
in name only, the actual functions of government 
to be vested in the Prince of Orange, acting on behalf 
of his wife. 

Whether the King and Halifax were acting in good 
faith, or whether this compromise was suggested merely 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 289 

with the object of inviting rejection and thus putting 
the Opposition wholly in the wrong, matters little. 
Its refusal was, from the strategical point of view, a 
signal blunder, in either case. " It is hardly too much 
to say, indeed," observed one of Shaftesbury's bio- 
graphers, " that pure patriotism could not have 
chosen but to consider it, and that nothing but sheer 
faction could, in the course of a short debate, have 
unconditionally rejected it." Such, however, was its 
actual fate, and there can scarcely be a doubt that 
the refusal of the House of Commons to entertain 
Halifax's " expedient," and their immediate resolution 
to reintroduce the Exclusion Bill, had the effect of 
confirming all men of moderate views in the opinion 
that Shaftesbury's object was not so much the exclusion 
of the Duke of York as the elevation of Monmouth, 
and that he was aiming less at the protection of 
the Protestant religion than at the attainment of the 
position of Mayor-of-the-Palace to a King of his own 
making.* 

Had they known what we know to-day, on the 
excellent authority of Barrillon, they would have had 
still less doubt on that point. The Ambassador, in 
a despatch dated March 28, reported that two days 
earlier in the House of Lords, before formal dis- 
cussion had begun, Shaftesbury approached the King 
and handed him a letter which, he said, had been 
addressed to him anonymously. The effect of this 
letter was that the King should at once declare Mon- 
mouth his successor. Charles repeated that nothing 
should induce him to take a resolution so contrary to 

* H. D. Traill, " Shaftesbury." 

J 9 



29 o RIVAL SULTANAS 

all law and justice. Shaftesbury rejoined that, if the 
King were only restrained by law and justice, he 
might leave the matter to himself and his friends, and 
" they would make laws which would give legality to a 
step so necessary for the quiet of the whole nation 
and by which great calamities might be avoided." 
" To which," writes Barrillon, " the King of England 
made answer: < My Lord, let there be no self- 
deception. I will never yield, and will not let myself 
be intimidated. Men become ordinarily more 
timid as they grow old ; as for me, I shall be, on the 
contrary, bolder and firmer ; and I will not stain my 
life and reputation in the little time that perhaps 
remains to me to live. I fear not the dangers and 
calamities with which people try to frighten me. I 
have the law and reason on my side. Good men will 
be with me. There is the Church ' (pointing to the 
bishops), 'which will remain united with me. Be- 
lieve me, my Lord, we shall not be divided, and I hope 
that soon there will be none but poor creatures and 
knaves to support a measure without any good 
foundation.' '' 

It is very possible, as Traill suggests, that this dia- 
logue may have been embellished by Barrillon's in- 
formant. But even if that be so, the Ambassador's 
despatch is, nevertheless, good evidence that Shaftes- 
bury pressed Monmouth on the King, in a private 
conversation on the very day on which Halifax's 
"expedient" was discussed in the Lords, and that 
Charles, "who had shown by his acceptance of this 
proposal that he had no particular tenderness for 
James's personal claims, did really feel in this matter 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 291 

that conscientious scruple which was with him the 
last survival of a moral sense." 

It was not only by their attitude on the Succession 
Question that the House of Commons continued to 
alienate the sympathies of their more prudent fellow- 
countrymen. Even in this one week of the session, they 
found other occasions to demonstrate the arbitrary and 
factious spirit which animated them ; and their attempt 
to revive the waning panic by impeaching a man named 
Fitzharris before the House of Lords, in defiance of the 
constitutional rule which entitled him to a trial by his 
peers in the course of common law, did still more to 
influence public opinion on the side of the Crown. Their 
course, indeed, seems to have been based wholly on a 
belief that the penury of the Treasury left Charles at 
their mercy, and that a refusal of supplies must wring 
from him his assent to the Exclusion. But Louis's gold 
had freed the King from any dependence on their assist- 
ance. He wanted no money from them ; he believed that, 
however high-handed his treatment of them, he would 
now have the support of the great mass of the nation, 
as a Sovereign whose patience and conciliatory temper 
had been rewarded with nothing but insult and violence. 
There was everything to induce him to make short work 
of them, and nothing whatever to deter him. He 
determined to strike at once. 

As usual, he dissimulated his intention to the last 
moment, so as to give a dramatic touch to the pro- 
ceedings and render the blow the more effective ; and, 
having received on Sunday, the 27th, a complaint from 
the Commons that they were seriously incommoded 
in the Geometry School for want of room, gave orders 

19* 



292 RIVAL SULTANAS 

for the theatre to be prepared for their occupation by 
the following Tuesday. But on Sunday afternoon he 
held a Cabinet Council at Merton, where the Lord 
Chancellor, who was a little unwell, was lodged, " and 
there the dissolution of Parliament was resolved on, and 
there was not one false or babbling member."* The 
same night, his coach was quietly sent a stage out of 
Oxford, accompanied by a guard of horse, to await his 
coming. 

Early on Monday morning, the King went down in a 
sedan-chair to the Hall of Christ Church, where the 
Lords were sitting, followed by another sedan-chair, 
which was supposed to contain a lord-in-waiting. What 
it really contained was his robes of state. Hastily putting 
them on, he seated himself on the throne, and, without 
giving the Lords time for their customary robing, ordered 
the Commons to be summoned. He knew that they 
would come in the firm belief that, under the pressure 
of his supposed financial necessities, he was about to 
announce his surrender, and the thought of how rudely 
he was about to undeceive them must have diverted him 
immensely as he sat there in his gorgeous robes, awaiting 
the arrival of his victims. But let us allow Charles's 
fervid admirer, Thomas Bruce, to describe the scene 
which followed : 

" About eleven, I went to Christ Church, the Parlia- 
ment sitting in great rooms within the precincts of the 
College. I met a friend of mine that told me the King 
was sitting on his throne, and with his robes and crown, 
and, for the more secrecy, the peers had no notice given 
them to put on their robes. I went into the House 

* " Memoirs of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury." 



I 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 293 

by the door next the canopy, and the King gave me a 
most gracious smile, and I never saw him with such a 
cheerful countenance. 

" The King expected the Speaker and the Commons. 
I retired into the corner at the end of the Bishops' Bench 
next the bar, though, according to formes, as a member 
I ought to have been within the bar. The door by 
which the Speaker was to enter was very straight, and 
three steps to enter, which prolonged the time much, 
and they got in beside with great difficulty. The 
Speaker came to the bar, with my Lord Russell on his 
right and my Lord Cavendish on his left. The crowd 
was such, and the noise so loud, that the first Serjeant- 
at-Arms cried out three times : ' Silence in the King's 
name ! ' 

" The King ordered my Lord Chancellor Finch to 
do his duty ; on which he declared in the usual manner 
that the Parliament should be dissolved. I was witness 
of the dreadful faces of the members and their loud 
sighs. I went up the House to attend the King at the 
putting off of his robes, and, with a most pleasing and 
cheerful countenance, he touched me on the shoulder, 
with this expression : ' I am now a better man than 
you were a quarter of an hour since ; you had better 
have one King than five hundred,*' and bade us all go 
to our houses and stay there until further orders. ... In 
appearance, he dined in public and with music, as the 
other days, but 'twas a breakfast rather ; and sitting a 

* Some ver9es found among Anthony Wood's MSS. express the 6ame opinion : 
Under 500 Kings three Kingdoms grone, 

Goe, Finch [the Lord Chancellor], desolve them, Charles is on the throne, 
And by the grace of God will reigne alone. 



294 RIVAL SULTANAS 

very short time, and retiring into a room, he went 
privately down a back stairs and slipped into Sir Edward 
Seymour's coach (and there was not so much as one in 
his livery or guards that were posted on the road) ; and 
the next Monday he came to Whitehall."* 

The Lords did not immediately disperse when the 
King left the House. Shaftesbury gathered his sup- 
porters around him, under the pretence of signing a 
protest, and proposed that they should continue to sit 
in defiance of the dissolution. He even sent messengers 
to the Commons to exhort them to a like boldness. 
But when they reflected that Charles had a considerable 
body of troops about Oxford, their lordships began to 
fear — to use Lord Grey's expression — that " if they 
did not disperse, the King would come and pull them 
out by the ears ; " and one by one they slunk away, 
until the House was deserted. 

It was at once apparent that Charles had won a com- 
plete victory and that the Succession was saved. The 
hideous edifice of fraud and blood which Oates and his 
accomplices had reared was already tottering to its fall ; 
and the bulk of the nation, ashamed and disgusted at 
its folly, turned savagely upon the unscrupulous poli- 
ticians, who, for their own ends, had not hesitated to 
stimulate those miscreants' perjuries, and, in their 
efforts to intimidate the King into accepting a bastard 
as his heir, had dragged the country almost to the verge 
of another civil war. A cleverly-worded declaration 
issued by Charles on April 8, in which he recounted the 
misdeeds of the Parliament and his own manifold virtues 
and appealed to the justice of his people, was answered 

* " Memoirs of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury." 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE COURT 295 

by an t almost universal burst of loyalty. The Church 
rallied to the King ; his declaration was read from every 
pulpit ; the Universities declared that he reigned by 
" a fundamental hereditary right, which no religion, 
no law, no fault, no forfeiture could alter or diminish," 
and throughout the summer addresses couched in the 
most slavish language kept pouring in. By July, Charles 
felt strong enough to have Shaftesbury arrested and 
brought to trial on a charge of suborning witnesses to 
the Plot. But London was still true to the Whig 
leader ; the Middlesex Grand Jury threw out the 
bill, and his release was hailed with bonfires and the 
ringing of bells. 

However, if Shaftesbury were still strong in London, 
in the provinces his influence had received a mortal 
blow ; and so, feeling that he had thoroughly earned a 
holiday, at the beginning of September, the King set 
out for Newmarket. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



' I A HERE had been no Spring race-meeting at New- 
market that year, and, perhaps on that account, 
the little town was even more than usually crowded. 
All the leading patrons of the Turf were there, and 
what with horse and foot-races, hawking and cock- 
fighting, to say nothing of other pleasures, which were 
not peculiar to Newmarket, they seem to have had a 
right merry time. " His Majesty being arrived there," 
says The Dome stick Intelligencer, " after dinner was 
divertized with a match of cock-fighting, upon which 
many of the Court lay'd great wagers, and 'tis said that 
his Majesty was pleased to bet several guineas ; after 
that a foot-race was run between a country-fellow and a 
foot-man, there being great odds laid upon the head 
of the latter, yet, notwithstanding that he was a clever 
and well-made person, and the countryman so very 
heavy and cumbersome, the countryman won the race 
by about 40 yards, to the great admiration of all present. 
The evening was spent in heats and breathings of several 
horses, in order to prepare them for the great races 
that were to be run there." 
296 



LE ROI S'AMUSE 297 

Charles's enjoyment of the pleasures of Newmarket 
had not diminished with the years. " The King," 
writes Reresby, " was so much pleased with the country, 
and so great a lover of the diversions which that place 
did afford, that he let himself down from Majesty to 
the very degree of a country-gentleman. He mixed 
himself amongst the crowd, allowed every man to speak 
to him that pleased ; went a-hawking in the mornings, 
to cock-matches in the afternoons (if there were no 
horse-races), and to plays in the evenings, acted in a 
barn, and by very ordinary Bartolemew fair comedians." 
Lord Conway, who had succeeded Sunderland as Secre- 
tary, was in attendance ; but he appears to have found 
it no easy matter to persuade the King to attend to any 
State matters ; indeed, if we are to credit what he wrote 
to Sir Leoline Jenkins, at Whitehall, business had to 
take its chance when his Majesty was in bed ; and if 
it were not transacted in these circumstances, it had to 
be deferred altogether. In fairness to Charles, however, 
it should be mentioned that gossip affirms that, during 
much of the time that he was at Newmarket, my Lord 
was in so mellow a condition that he could scarcely 
have ventured to wait upon his Sovereign. 

Both the Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwyn 
were likewise in attendance on his Majesty. The 
latter, during her visits to the headquarters of the 
Turf, was not honoured with apartments in the palace, 
but usually occupied an adjoining house which Charles 
had bought for her, and where he paid her frequent 
visits. Mr. Hore, in his " History of Newmarket," 
says that, according to a local tradition, there was an 
underground passage between the palace and Nell's 



298 RIVAL SULTANAS 

house in those times. " It is," he adds, " even now 
alleged that a portion of it may still be traced leading 
from Mr. Leopold de Rothschild's house to the 
' Rutland Arms.' " 

If any such secret means of communication did really 
exist, it would seem to have been a wholly unnecessary 
precaution, since, although Charles may have desired 
to conceal the frequency of his visits to Nell from the 
inhabitants of Newmarket, that lively lady had not 
the smallest scruple about proclaiming their relation- 
ship to the world, whereby during this same autumn 
meeting she greatly scandalized the Mayor and Alder- 
men of Oxford, who had come to present a petition to 
the King. 

The Corporation of Oxford was as aggressively Whig 
as the University was violently Tory, and the leading 
spirit of the deputation, a certain Alderman Wright, 
had been Monmouth's host during the Parliament 
which had recently been dissolved. Nor was the 
object of their visit one that was likely to commend 
them to the King, it being to pray that his Majesty 
would be graciously pleased to confirm the nomination 
of a certain Thomas Prince — a most rabid partisan of 
Shaftesbury — to the office of town clerk. For two 
or three days they hung about, waiting for some member 
of the Court to present them to the King, which no 
one seemed disposed to do. At length, growing 
desperate, they resolved to lie in wait for Charles on 
the Heath, where they somewhat unceremoniously 
presented their petition. The King promised to con- 
sider it ; but the " Black Guard," that is to say, the 
linkmen, scullions and other menials of the Court, who 




%6d$>&sM—: *L ffi^M 



«^r. ( 



NELL GWYN 

From a mezzotint engraving by J. Becket, alter a painting by Verrhells. 



LE ROI S'AMUSE 299 

had gathered to see the racing, angry at their pre- 
sumption, " treated them very rudely, calling them 
Presbyterian petitioners and Whiggish dogs, and 
saluted them with stones and dirt."* Indeed, but for 
the appearance of Nell Gwyn, whose arrival upon the 
scene caused a diversion, they would have been very 
roughly handled. Subsequently, the King informed 
them, through Lord Conway, that Mr. Thomas Prince 
did not meet with his approval, " to which they answered 
that they were very sorry for it, and so went away."f 
The mortified civic dignitaries returned to Oxford 
in a very ill humour with the King, which was not 
diminished, when, the story of their adventures having 
got abroad, ribald undergraduates made game of them 
in the streets. The pompous Alderman Wright, who 
appears to have been the favourite butt of the scholars' 
wit, was particularly envenomed against his Majesty, 
with whose " goings on " he professed to be un- 
utterably shocked. " Alderman Wright, lately goeing 
before Brazen Nose Coll.," writes Dr. Prideaux to 
John Ellis, " a fresh man came out, and spying him past 
by, called out : ' Run, Alderman, run ! The Black 
Guard are comeing,' which put the Alderman into so 
violent a passion that he was scarcely himself all that 
day. Wherever he comes, he speaks scurrulously of 
the King. It seems when y e Alderman was at New- 
market with his petition, the King, walking in the 
feilds [i.e. on the Heath], met Nel Gwyn, and Nel 
cald to him : ' Charles, I hope I shall have your 

* " Letter* of Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, to John Ellis, Under- 
Secretary of State, 1674-172Z." 
t Ibid. 



300 RIVAL SULTANAS 

company at night, shall I not ? ' With this story the 
Alderman makes a great deal of worke wherever he 
comes. He says that he had often heard bad things of 
the King, but now his own eyes have seen it."* 

Nell Gwyn no doubt enjoyed her visit to New- 
market, but it may be doubted whether the Duchess 
of Portsmouth did. Her Grace was, indeed, very 
much exercised in her mind just then about the turn 
which political events had taken, and the influence they 
were likely to have upon her future prospects. Since 
his serious illness in 1679, Charles had never been quite 
the same man ; and she did not believe that he would 
live many years. And what would happen to her in 
the event of the King's death ? 

She ought, of course, to have been a wealthy woman, 
but she had been so recklessly extravagant that the 
immense sums which she had received had been for the 
most part frittered away, and she was, besides, deeply 
in debt. From James, when he should come to the 
throne, she could expect nothing, for he was reported 
to be greatly incensed against her by her intrigues with 
the Exclusionists ; nor, if, under his rule, the Whigs 
should again be in the ascendant, could she look for any 
consideration at their hands, since they were not likely 
to forget that she had abandoned their cause at a 
critical moment. Altogether, the outlook was most 
unpromising, and she felt that it behoved her to take 
measures to assure herself an adequate provision for 
the future with the least possible delay. 

* " Letters of Humphrey Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, to John Ellis, Under- 
Secretary of State, 1674-1722." 



LE ROI S'AMUSE 301 

With this object, she bombarded the King with 
entreaties, until she had extracted from him a promise 
that she should be fully provided for. But to do this 
was no easy matter, for the most rigid economy barely 
sufficed to carry on the government ; and Charles did 
not wish to summon another Parliament, lest he should 
forfeit Louis's subsidy; for, now that the question of 
the Succession was disposed of, the Parliament would 
be certain to turn its attention to the aggressions of 
that potentate. At length, however, the favourite 
suggested to him a way out of the difficulty. 

The Duke of York was still an exile in Scotland, 
to which he had returned shortly before the opening 
of the Parliament of 1680 ; and, to his profound disgust, 
since he heartily disliked the country and sighed for 
the pleasures of London, his return seemed likely to be 
postponed indefinitely. For Halifax had warned the 
King that to recall the duke so long as he professed 
himself a Catholic would be to forfeit his present 
popularity, and in August, 1681, Charles had despatched 
Hyde to Edinburgh, to inform his brother that he 
could not permit him to return to England unless he 
would consent to conform, at least outwardly, to 
the Established Church. The Duchess of Portsmouth, 
however, succeeded in persuading the King to consent 
to James's return, in consideration of his agreeing to 
settle upon her £5,000 a year out of the Post Office 
revenues enjoyed by him, which sum was to be made 
up to the duke out of the Excise ; and Charles invited 
his brother to join him at Newmarket, at the Spring 
Meeting of 1682, to make the necessary arrangements. 
James was aware that this scheme could not be carried 



3 o2 RIVAL SULTANAS 

out without the consent of Parliament, but he kept 
this knowledge to himself, until he had come to New- 
market and obtained the King's consent to fixing his 
residence in England ; and the following summer found 
him once more at St. James's Palace. As Charles had no 
intention of summoning another Parliament the little 
arrangement fell through ; but, the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth having learned of the French subsidy, he was 
obliged to console her for her disappointment by allo- 
cating for her benefit £10,000 out of each quarterly 
payment, until she should have received a total sum of 
£100,000. At the time of the King's death only one 
instalment remained to be paid. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH VISITS FRANCE 

'T^HE Duchess of Portsmouth was not at New- 
market when the meeting between the royal 
brothers took place. In the first days of March she 
had embarked at Greenwich on the royal yacht, and 
sailed for the country of her birth, which she had not 
seen for nearly twelve years. Her enemies persisted 
in representing her departure as a final one ;* but, in 
point of fact, it was merely intended to be a visit of a 
few months' duration. " She wished to appear at the 
Court of France in the splendour of her rank of favou- 
rite. She wished to recount herself to Louis XIV. 
all that she had done to bring about the indissoluble 
union of the two nations. It is the hour of her pride 
and of her splendour, the hour of her triumph in the 
midst of the Frenchwomen who had known her poor 
and humble."f 

It may seem at first sight a little strange that the 
duchess should have thought it safe to quit the side 
of so very susceptible a monarch as Charles II., even 

* " The enemies of Madame de Portsmouth announce that she has gone 
to France to return no more." — Barrillon to Louis XIV., March 16, 1682. 
t Forneron, Louisa de Keroualle, Duchesse de Portsmouth. 
303 



3 o 4 RIVAL SULTANAS 

for a few months. She had, however, satisfied herself 
that she had no longer any rival to fear. For the King's 
infatuation for Madame de Mazarin had not lasted 
very long. It had been from the beginning merely a 
physical attraction, and now that Charles was no longer 
young, and his health was no longer what it had once 
been, something more than physical charms were 
required to obtain any permanent influence over him. 
And, besides, the seductive Italian was unfortunately 
unable to accord her royal admirer more than a share 
of her affections. So irresistible were her charms that 
her position as King's favourite did not prevent her 
from becoming the object of the most passionate and 
romantic adoration, and she was besieged by soupirants. 
There was the Portuguese Ambassador, Dom Luis de 
Vasconcellos, who loved her so blindly, we are told, that 
he appeared to be quite unaware that his infatuation 
had made him the laughing-stock of both Court and 
town ; there was Ralph Montagu, who neglected for 
her sake the political intrigues in which he was risking 
his head ;* and there was the Prince of Monaco, one of 
her old friends of Savoy, who, having come to London 
with the intention of staying a few days, remained for 
two years, " absorbed by his devotion." 

With this last admirer the duchess fell in love, and all 
the remonstrances of her political friends availed nothing 
against the dictates of her heart. Saint-Evremond, in a 
Discours sur VAmitit, hazarded some counsels which were 
intended to apply to her. " What," wrote he, " might 

* " Mr. Montagu goes no more to Madam Mazarin's," wrote the Countess 
of Sunderland to Henry Sidney. " The town says he is forbid ; whether his 
love or his politics were too pressing I know not." 



THE DUCHESS VISITS FRANCE 305 

not Madame de Chevreuse, the Countess of Carlisle, 
and the Princess Palatine have achieved, if they had 
not spoiled by their hearts all that their intelligence 
might have accomplished ? " It was the same with 
Madame de Mazarin. All the hopes which the enemies 
of the Duchess of Portsmouth had based upon the 
Italian's conquest of the King were rudely dashed to 
the ground. For the liaison caused so much talk that 
it soon reached Charles's ears, and, in high dudgeon, 
since, easy-going as he was, he was not prepared to 
tolerate another Duchess of Cleveland, he stopped the 
lady's pension and treated her with marked coldness. 
After a few weeks, he relented so far as to restore the 
pension ; and, indeed, he could hardly in justice have 
refused to do so, since, owing apparently to the reports 
which had reached him concerning his wife's relations 
with the King of England, M. de Mazarin had dis- 
continued his.* But, though a little later, the intimacy 
was resumed, his Majesty's attentions were henceforth 
of an intermittent character, and no longer caused the 
Duchess of Portsmouth any uneasiness. 

* M. de Mazarin appears to have been under the impression that the pension 
which the King was paying his wife was in the form of a loan, for which he 
himself might be made responsible, since Saint-Evremond tells us that he 
despatched an emissary to England to represent to him that his wife's receipts 
were valueless. To which Charles replied, laughing, that that was a matter 
which troubled him not at all, since he never took any. It would appear, 
however, that he would not have been sorry if the expenses of the lady's 
maintenance could have been shared with her husband, for in February, 1682, 
we find Barrillon writing to Louis XIV. : " He [the King] has charged me 
this morning to supplicate your Majesty, on his behalf, and to inform him, 
that he will be doing him [Charles] a sensible favour by consenting to interpose 
his authority, and to make M. de Mazarin continue to pay his wife the pension 
which he promised her, and the payment of which he has discontinued for 
two years past." 

20 



3 o6 RIVAL SULTANAS 

The favourite of Charles II. had no reason to com- 
plain of the reception which awaited her in France. 
" There was nothing to equal the welcome which 
she received," writes Saint-Simon, and he relates how 
when she went one feast-day to visit the Capuchin 
convent in the Rue Saint-Honore, " these poor monks, 
who had been warned of her coming, sallied forth in 
procession to meet her, with the cross, holy water and 
incense. They received her as though she had been 
the Queen and threw her into a strange confusion." 
The gratified sultana did not fail to inform her friends 
in England of her triumphs, and Charles II. hastened 
to acquaint Louis XIV., through Barrillon, how deeply 
sensible he was of " the receptions and the honours 
accorded to Madame de Portsmouth." 

At the end of April, the duchess left Saint-Cloud, 
where the French Court then was, for her estate of 
Aubigny, in Berry, where she spent some days. Then 
she proceeded to Bourbon-les-Bains, where she passed 
the remainder of May and the first part of June with 
her sister, Lady Pembroke, and from the waters of which 
her health derived considerable benefit. From Bourbon 
she would appear to have gone to Brittany, on a visit to 
her parents ; but the middle of July saw her again at 
the Court, basking in the smiles of the monarch whom 
she had served so well, and arousing the envy and admira- 
tion of the ladies by the magnificence of her toilettes. 

Finally, towards the end of July, she returned to 
Whitehall, where Charles received her with open arms, 
in the literal as well as the figurative sense of the expres- 
sion, for Barrillon reported that " she appeared to have 
more credit and consideration than she had yet enjoyed." 




LOUISE DE KEROUALLE, DUCHESS OE PORTSMOUTH 
From the painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the collection of the Duke o, Richmond, K.G. 



THE DUCHESS VISITS FRANCE 307 

Charles busied himself in bringing about a reconcilia- 
tion between her and the Duke of York, which he 
effected, according to Burnet, by assuring his brother 
that the intrigues in which the lady had engaged during 
the contest over the Exclusion Bill had been in com- 
pliance with his orders, " so that she might gain the 
confidence of Shaftesbury and his partisans and betray 
their designs to him. The duke," adds the historian, 
" saw it was necessary to believe this or at least to seem 
to believe it." 

James was wise, for the consideration with which the 
favourite had been treated by Louis XIV. had, so to 
speak, consecrated her position, which was henceforth 
practically unassailable. Conscious of this, she became 
haughtier than ever, and those who ventured to criticize 
her had cause to regret it. Thus, on its being reported 
to her that the Dutch Ambassador, Vanbeuninghen, 
had been so ill-advised as " to exaggerate the fami- 
liarity " between her and Barrillon, and to observe that 
the access which she permitted the latter at all hours 
" marked a confidence and an intimacy between them 
which could not fail to be mortifying to the allies of the 
King of England," she complained to Charles that he 
had failed in respect towards her. The King made 
strong representations to Vanbeuninghen, who was 
obliged to ask pardon and " to give all the explanations 
necessary of the sincerity of his intentions and of his 
unwillingness to fail in any way in respect towards a 
lady for whom his Britannic Majesty showed so much 
consideration." After which he went in person to make 
the amende honorable to the Duchess of Portsmouth.* 

* Barrillon to Louis XIV., July 27, 1682. 



308 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Catherine of Braganza herself was obliged to enforce 
respect for her husband's mistress among the ladies of 
her entourage, the younger of whom were naturally- 
inclined to let their tongues wag a little freely. One 
day, the favourite waited upon the Queen to complain 
that she had learned from Lady Conway that Miss 
Temple, one of her Majesty's maids-of -honour, had 
permitted herself to indulge in some disrespectful obser- 
vations concerning her. The Queen immediately sent 
for the delinquent, rated her soundly, and, to punish 
her the more effectively, deprived her of her salary. 

Charles, like his mistress, had no longer any oppo- 
sition to fear. At Midsummer, 1682, he contrived, 
by trickery, to secure the election of Tory sheriffs 
for London, and the juries they packed left the life 
of every Exclusionist at the mercy of the Crown. 
Shaftesbury, aware that he was marked out for de- 
struction, for there was no chance of his getting another 
ignoramus from a Grand Jury, or even a fair trial, 
plunged madly into conspiracies with a handful of 
adventurers as desperate as himself, hid himself in the 
City, and called upon his friends to rise in insurrec- 
tion. But the measures he advocated were dis- 
countenanced by the other leaders of his party, and 
in November he fled to Holland, where two months 
later his restless spirit found peace in death. He died 
a bitterly-disappointed man, with the knowledge 
that by his violent and unscrupulous tactics he had 
wrecked his own and his party's fortunes. Never- 
theless, had he lived a few years longer, he would have 
witnessed the triumph of whatever was worthy to 
triumph in his political principles. 



THE DUCHESS VISITS FRANCE 309 

Despite the disappearance of Shaftesbury from the 
scene, the Whig leaders still believed opposition 
possible ; and Monmouth, with Essex, Russell, Lord 
Howard of Ettrick, Grey, Hampden and Algernon 
Sidney, held meetings with the object of founding 
an association whose agitation should force the King 
to summon a Parliament. But the more desperate 
spirits went much further, and a group of old Fifth 
Monarchy men, with whom Shaftesbury had been 
closely connected, formed a plan to kidnap — or to 
assassinate — both the King and the Duke of York, 
as they passed the Rye House, on their road from New- 
market to London, in June, 1683. The plot would in 
all probability have succeeded, but for a fortunate 
accident. A fire broke out at the royal palace at New- 
market and burned it to the ground ; and this caused 
Charles to return to London some days earlier than 
he had intended. 

The conspirators were betrayed and arrested, and 
the investigations which followed led to the arrest of 
Essex, Russell, Hampden, Sidney, and Howard of 
Ettrick ; Grey contrived to effect his escape, while 
Monmouth was allowed to hide himself. Howard 
turned King's evidence and revealed all that he knew, 
and more than he knew, of the consultations and 
objects of his friends. Although the project which 
they had meditated was wholly distinct from the 
other, the unscrupulous ingenuity of the Crown 
lawyers found little difficulty in blending them into 
one. Russell, notwithstanding that there was but 
one witness against him, as there had been against 
the innocent Stafford — the victim of himself and his 



310 RIVAL SULTANAS 

political friends — was convicted of treason and exe- 
cuted in Lincoln's Inn Fields, Charles refusing all 
applications for his pardon, even from the Duchess of 
Portsmouth, who had been offered a large sum for 
successful intervention. Algernon Sidney shared his 
fate, a manuscript treatise in which he had advocated 
the advantages of Republicanism being allowed by the 
infamous Jeffreys, now Chief Justice, to take the place 
of a second witness. Essex died by his own hand 
in the Tower on the same day on which Russell was 
condemned. The Nemesis of the Popish Plot had 
pursued the Whig leaders. They had taken up the 
sword of injustice to serve their political ends ; and 
they perished by it. 

Thus, the running fight between the Crown and 
Parliament ended in a complete victory for the former, 
and the Constitutional opposition which had held 
Charles so long in check lay prostrate at his feet. 
What little strength remained to the Country party 
lay chiefly in the towns, and these were now attacked 
by writs of " quo warranto" which called on them to 
show cause why their charters should not be declared 
forfeited on the ground of abuse of their privileges. 
A few verdicts in favour of the Crown were followed 
by a general surrender of municipal liberties ; and a 
grant of fresh charters, in which all but Royalists of 
the most uncompromising type were excluded from 
the corporations, placed the representation of the 
boroughs in the hands of the Crown. 

It was now generally believed that a Parliament 
would be summoned, for the elections could not have 
failed to result in an enormous majority for the Court ; 



THE DUCHESS VISITS FRANCE 311 

indeed, in Burnet's opinion, very few of the opposite 
party would have had the courage to offer themselves 
as candidates. But, though Halifax counselled this 
step, Charles declined to call another Parliament. 
His refusal was mainly due to the representations of 
his paymaster at Versailles, backed by the influence of 
the Duchess of Portsmouth. " The Court of France," 
says Burnet, " began to apprehend that the King might 
grow so much master at home, that he would be 
no longer in their management : and they foresaw 
that what success soever the King might have in 
a parliament in relation to his own affairs, it was 
not to be imagined that a house of commons, at the 
same time they showed their submission to the King, 
would not enable him to resist the progress of the 
French arms, and address to him to enter into alliances 
with the Spaniards and the States. So the French 
made use of all their instruments to divert our Court 
from calling a Parliament, and they got the King to 
consent to their possessing themselves of Luxembourg, 
for which I was told they gave him £300,000, but I 
have no certainty of that. Lord Montagu told me 
of it and seemed to believe it ;* and lady Portsmouth 
valued herself on Luxembourg as gained by her and 
called it her last service to France." 

* Montagu exaggerated the sum paid to Charles for this last act of sub- 
servience to France, which was a million livres (less than ^8o 3 ooo). 



CHAPTER XX 

THE EPISODE OF THE GRAND PRIOR 

INURING these last years of Charles II. 's reign, 
the Duchess of Portsmouth performed all the 
functions of a Queen. In strict alliance with James 
and Lawrence Hyde, now Earl of Rochester, she alone 
dealt with the secrets of State. When James wished 
to marry his younger daughter, the Princess Anne, 
he consulted the Duchess of Portsmouth upon the 
choice of a husband ; and she was charged by him to 
ascertain the opinion of Louis XIV. regarding Prince 
George of Denmark, and to send the young English 
princess's portrait to Copenhagen. In recognition of 
her services in negotiating this marriage, she received 
from the King of Denmark a portrait of himself set in 
diamonds, which, according to Barrillon, was valued 
at fifteen hundred guineas. When an embassy from 
the Sultan of Morocco arrived in London, it was in 
her " glorious " apartments at Whitehall that the fetes 
in their honour were given, where the grave Moors had 
the privilege of sitting down to the table with " the 
King's natural children, viz., Lady Lichfield and Lady 
Sussex, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Nelly, etc., con- 
312 



THE EPISODE OF THE GRAND PRIOR 313 

cubines and cattell of that sort, as splendid as jewels 
and excesse of bravery could make them."* When, 
in June, 1683, Louis XIV. sent the French fleet, under 
the command of the Marquis de Preuilly, into the 
Channel, without condescending to give notice to 
England, it was she who " took great pains to make 
the King (Charles II.) understand that it was not a 
breach of confidence and that he ought not to allow 
any one to discover that it was not by arrangement, 
lest those who wished to destroy his friendship with 
Louis XIV. should take advantage of it."t And, in 
concert with Barrillon, who treated her as a colleague, 
she managed all French interests. 

The favourite's apartments at Whitehall — the out- 
ward and visible sign of her supremacy — seem to have 
fully deserved the epithet which Evelyn applies to them. 
They far surpassed those of Queen Catherine in size 
and splendour ; while the magnificent furniture, plate, 
tapestries and objets (Fart with which they were filled 
must have represented a large fortune. " Following 
his Majesty this morning through the gallery," writes 
the diarist (October 4, 1683), " I went, with the few 
who attended him into the Duchess of Portsmouth's 
dressing-room within her bedchamber, where she was 
in her morning loose garment, her maids combing 
her, newly out of bed, and his Majesty and the 
gallants standing about her ; but that which engaged 
my curiosity, was the rich and splendid furniture of 
this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled 
down and rebuilt to satisfy her prodigal and expensive 
pleasure, whilst her Majesty's does not exceed some 

* Evelyn. t Barrillon. 



3H RIVAL SULTANAS 

gentlemen's ladies' in furniture and accommodation. 
Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry, for 
design and tenderness of work, and incomparable 
imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I 
had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. 
Germains, and other palaces of the French King, with 
huntings, figures and landscapes, exotic fowls, and 
all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, 
skreens, pendule-clocks, great vases, wrought plate, 
tables, stands, chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, 
braseries etc., all of massy silver, and out of number, 
besides some of her Majesty's best paintings." 

So little had she. now to fear from any rival, so firm 
was her hold upon the affections of Charles, that she 
even ventured to inflict upon him the tortures of a 
belated jealousy. In the spring of 1683, Philippe de 
Vendome, Grand Prior of France, the younger of 
the two sons of Philippe, second Due de Vendome and 
Laura Mancini, elder sister of the Duchesse de Mazarin, 
came to London. The Grand Prior, who was at 
this time in his twenty-ninth year and already noted 
for his witty conversation, was a singularly handsome 
young man — in later life, he entirely lost his good looks 
and became coarse and bloated, which is hardly sur- 
prising, seeing that he is said never to have gone to 
bed sober for thirty years — and the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth showed so marked an interest in him as to arouse 
the amusement of the Court and the suspicions of the 
King. 

" Some clouds are rising," writes Barrillon to Louis 
XIV., " on the subject of the Grand Prior, and the 
King shows himself sometimes sulky and suspicious, 



-— ... N 




PHILIPPE DE VENDOME, GRAND PRIOR OF FRANCE 

From a contemporary print. 



THE EPISODE OF THE GRAND PRIOR 315 

but that does not last long. Prudence would desire 
that Madame de Portsmouth makes use of an effective 
remedy, by persuading the Grand Prior to return 
to France. But I do not yet observe any disposition 
on her part to do so. Those who would give her 
such counsel would be certain to displease her and 
not to be believed. However, Madame de Ports- 
mouth's friends are not without uneasiness. Milord 
Sunderland* has spoken to me about it, and fears 
that the King's suspicions may become stronger and 
may have consequences. She has still great influence 
[with the King] ; and the most accredited Ministers 
are on terms of great intimacy with her. Her 
enemies are very much on the alert to do her an ill- 
turn ; but up to the present they have not succeeded. 
She is fully warned and remains on her guard. "f 

Sunderland's fears were realized, in so far as regards his 
Majesty's suspicions. But Charles did not dare to remon- 
strate with the favourite ; with increasing years, he had 
become so indolent and enervated, and so completely 
her slave, that he had no power of revolt left in him. 
However, he wished to rid himself of the rivalry of the 
handsome young Frenchman, and accordingly sent 
Sunderland to request him to cease visiting the Duchess 
of Portsmouth. He was obeyed for a few days, after 
which the visits were resumed. Charles then deputed 
Barrillon to inform his compatriot that it was his royal 
will and pleasure that he should take himself back to 
France. " I informed the Grand Prior of this as gently 

* Sunderland, in spite of his uneasiness, had invited the Grand Prior to 
dinner. Evelyn, who met him there, describes him as a " young wild spark." 

f Despatch of June 18, 1683, cited by Forneron. 



316 RIVAL SULTANAS 

as possible," writes Barrillon to Louis XIV., " and I 
endeavoured to persuade him to withdraw without 
making any scandal. He told me that he would not 
withdraw, unless the King gave him the order with his 
own mouth, and urged me to obtain an audience for 
him. I begged the King to permit the Grand Prior 
to receive his commands from himself, but I had con- 
siderable difficulty in obtaining this. However, in the 
end, the Grand Prior was accorded permission to speak 
to the King in his chamber. He did so, and began to 
justify himself. But the King did not wish to have a 
long conversation with him, and persisted in his first 
resolution. The Grand Prior, however, was not dis- 
posed to leave and begged me not to charge myself with 
the communication of the order to him. I represented 
to him the inconveniences of his behaviour, and that 
he would bring upon himself a treatment which it was 
much more desirable to avoid. But he declined to be 
persuaded. The strongest reason he has to allege for 
not leaving England, is that, having had the misfortune 
to incur Your Majesty's displeasure, he does not dare 
to return to France. The King wished me to charge 
myself once more with his orders to be gone. But I 
begged him to entrust them to some one else." 

Charles successfully curbed his impatience for several 
days, and then, finding that his orders were still flouted, 
sent the Lieutenant of his Guards to inform the contu- 
macious Vendome that, if he were not gone in two days, 
he would have him conducted to Dover by his guards 
and placed on board the packet, if necessary, by force. 
Still, however, the Grand Prior lingered, and suggested 
that perhaps his Majesty might be satisfied if, instead 



THE EPISODE OF THE GRAND PRIOR 317 

of leaving England altogether, he quitted London and 
retired into the country. This compromise being 
rejected, he thereupon offered to leave England, pro- 
vided he had permission to return a little later. 

At the request of the Duchess of Portsmouth, who was 
becoming seriously alarmed at the turn that the affair 
was taking, and desired at all costs to avoid a scandal, 
Barrillon took upon himself to propose this to the King ; 
but Charles remained firm and insisted that the Grand 
Prior should take his departure immediately. At length, 
towards the end of November, that gentleman conde- 
scended to comply with the King's orders and sailed for 
Holland, to the great relief of the friends of the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, " who," writes Barrillon, " believe that 
she has got out of an affair that might have ruined her." 

The lady herself was by no means so sure that she 
had got out of the affair ; for Philippe de Vendome 
had carried away a number of highly compromising 
letters which she had been so indiscreet as to write to 
him, and, as he was decidedly mortified by her conduct 
in not intervening to prevent him being driven from her 
side by the jealousy of the King, she was in mortal fear 
lest he should make them public. 

" It appears to me," writes Barrillon, " that Madame 
de Portsmouth and the Grand Prior are not too satisfied 
with one another. I know that she was apprehensive 
lest he should show her letters. There was, however, 
no appearance that the Grand Prior intended to proceed 
to such an extremity. The truth is that he did not wish 
to leave here, and that he hoped to derive great advan- 
tages and great consideration from his intimacy with 
Madame de Portsmouth. All that appears well ended, 



3 i8 RIVAL SULTANAS 

but Madame de Portsmouth is not without uneasiness 
lest the Grand Prior should yet make some scene in 
public." 

Louis XIV. did not hesitate to intervene in person 
to free from all embarrassment the woman whose 
assistance he considered so necessary to the success of 
his foreign policy. He ordered the Due de Vendome* 
to write to his younger brother, who was at The Hague, 
to inform him that he was at liberty to return to Ver- 
sailles where he would meet with " a more favourable 
reception than his conduct in England deserved ; " 
and he instructed Barrillon to assure the Duchess of 
Portsmouth that, the moment the Grand Prior arrived, 
it was his intention to warn him that any disclosures 
to the disadvantage of that lady would bring down upon 
him his resentment — a threat which, in the days of the 
Bastille and lettres de cachet, was not one to be disregarded, 
even by a Prince of the Blood. 

Philippe de Vendome obeyed the royal command 
and maintained a perpetual silence about this adventure ; 
insomuch that when, many years later, the Regent Due 
d' Orleans, who had learned that it was the jealousy of 
Charles II. which had cut short the Grand Prior's visit 
to England, happened to refer to the audacity of his 
kinsman in entering the lists of love against a prince 
in his own dominions, he showed that he was under the 
impression that it was one of Charles's subordinate 
mistresses who had been the cause of the trouble. 

The Grand Prior did not, however, seem in any hurry 
to avail himself of his Sovereign's permission to return 

* Louis Joseph de Vendome, who so greatly distinguished himself as a general 
in the War of the Spanish Succesiion. 



THE EPISODE OF THE GRAND PRIOR 319 

to the Court of France, and the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
who appears to have formed anything but a high opinion 
of her admirer's character, remained in dread of his 
possible indiscretions for some months, particularly 
when she heard that he was talking of revisiting England. 
To calm her apprehensions, Louis XIV. sent him positive 
orders to return immediately to Versailles and charged 
Barrillon to inform the duchess that if, in the face of 
this, he persisted in coming to England, Charles II. was 
perfectly at liberty to have him arrested and thrown into 
prison. Eventually, the Grand Prior reappeared at 
Versailles, and the affair which had caused the Duchess 
of Portsmouth so much anxiety terminated without any 
scandal. 

The indiscretions — or worse — of the favourite with 
the Grand Prior, so far from being followed by any cool- 
ness on the part of Charles towards her, seem to have 
riveted still faster the chains by which she had bound 
him. " The King,'' writes Burnet, " was observed to 
be more than ordinarily pensive, and his fondness to 
Lady Portsmouth increased much and broke out in 
very indecent instances. . . . The King caressed and 
kissed her in the view of all people ; which he had never 
done on any occasion, or to any person, formerly." 

At the beginning of 1684, Charles, at the lady's in- 
stance, asked that Louis XIV. would erect the Aubigny 
estates into a duchy, with remainder to her son, Charles 
Lennox, Duke of Richmond. Barrillon, when com- 
municating the King's request to Versailles, thought it 
his duty to protest against such a pretension, as the 
Duchess of Portsmouth had been accorded by special 
favour, the tabouret in the presence of the Queen during 



320 RIVAL SULTANAS 

her recent visit to France ; and this, in his opinion, was 
a sufficient concession. Louis, however, did not hesi- 
tate, and replied that letters patent should be made out 
at once. Charles, the Ambassador informs his master, 
was overwhelmed with delight on learning that his 
request was to be accorded, and hastened to communi- 
cate the good news to the sultana, who " displayed an 
excessive joy, and has since received the congratulations 
of the whole Court." 

From that moment, the Duchess of Portsmouth 
became, if it were possible, a more important personage 
than ever, and when she fell ill at the beginning 
of November, 1684, her illness caused all the Court 
functions to be suspended, and Charles spent nearly the 
whole of his time in the sick-room. Louis XIV. wrote 
to Barrillon expressing the hope that her illness would 
but increase her credit, and instructing the Ambassador 
to keep him informed on that point ; and, to secure her 
son in the possession of the Aubigny estates in the event 
of her death, caused letters of naturalization to be made 
out in favour of " his very dear and beloved cousin the 
Prince Charles de Lennox, Due de Richmond." 



CHAPTER XXI 



NELL GWYN S LETTERS 



A FTER the fire which had saved him from the Rye 
House Plot, but had left him without lodgings 
at Newmarket, Charles decided on building a palace at 
Winchester, the country around which afforded excellent 
opportunities for sport, and particularly for hawking ; 
and Sir Christopher Wren was instructed to design a 
magnificent palace there, on the site of the ruins of the 
old castle. The work was commenced without delay, 
and the King, with part of the Court, which, of course, 
included the Duchess of Portsmouth and Nell Gwyn, 
often came down to inspect progress, and enjoy a week 
or two's hunting or hawking in the New Forest, which 
he occasionally varied by a day's fishing in the Itchin. 
At such times the King lodged at the bishop's palace, 
while the houses of the dean and prebendaries were 
used for the accommodation of his courtiers. On ofie 
occasion, the pious and learned Ken, then one of the 
King's chaplains and a prebendary of Winchester, was 
required to surrender his official residence to Nell Gwyn. 
He remonstrated with indignation. "A woman of ill 
repute," he exclaimed, " ought not to be endured in the 
321 21 



322 RIVAL SULTANAS 

house of a clergyman, least of all in that of the King's 
chaplain." 

Bowles, in his " Life of Ken," states that the tradition 
at Winchester was that Nell had already installed herself 
in the canonical lodging and that she refused to move, 
and did not move, until Ken had caused part of the 
roof to be taken off. Any way, she had to be accommo- 
dated at the Deanery, from which, however, she subse- 
quently removed to Avington, the seat of the notorious 
Countess of Shrewsbury, about three miles to the north- 
east of the cathedral town. Here, about the middle 
of the last century, Cunningham tells us, a room which 
she is said to have used as a dressing-room was still shown. 

Charles, though little accustomed to meet with such 
refusals, was far from taking offence at his chaplain's 
outspokenness. He had a strong liking for Ken, whom 
he knew to be a good and honest man, as well as a pro- 
found scholar and an eloquent preacher, and he appre- 
ciated his courage in risking the royal displeasure and his 
chances of preferment at the bidding of his conscientious 
scruples. He determined that he should not be the 
loser by it ; and when, shortly afterwards, the see of Bath 
and Wells became vacant by the translation of Mews to 
Winchester, he selected " the little black fellow who 
would not give poor Nelly a night's lodging " from among 
a crowd of applicants. 

Charles II. had his own way of atoning for his mis- 
deeds, and one of the best actions of his life was the 
erection of Chelsea Hospital for aged and disabled 
soldiers, the first stone of which was laid by the King 
himself in the spring of 1682. A popular tradition 



NELL GWYN'S LETTERS 323 

asserts that the idea originated with Nell Gwyn, and 
though there is no corroboration in history of this, it 
may none the less be correct. " I see no reason to doubt 
the tradition," writes Cunningham, " supported as it is 
by the well-known benevolence of her character, her 
sympathy with the suffering, and the fact that sixty 
years ago at least Nelly's share in its foundation was 
recorded beneath her portrait, serving as the sign of a 
public house adjoining the Hospital. The sign remains, 
but not the inscription. Yet the tradition is still rife 
in Chelsea, and is not soon likely to die out ; Ormonds, 
and Granbys, and Admiral Vernons disappear, but 
Nelly remains, and long may she swing with her favourite 
lamb in the row or street commemorated for ever in the 
Chelsea Pensioners of Wilkie." 

Mr. Wheatley, in a footnote to the 1903 edition of 
Cunningham's book, observes : " There is no corrobora- 
tion in history of the popular tradition that Nell Gwyn 
suggested the foundation of Chelsea Hospital. Evelyn 
was intimately associated with the early history of the 
Hospital, and he says that to Sir Stephen Fox was due 
the suggestion to Charles II. of the erection of a royal 
hospital " for emerited soldiers." But, as Mr. Cecil 
Chesterton points out, Evelyn does not say this. His 
words are these : ' Dined with Sir Stephen Fox, who 
proposed to me the purchasing of Chelsea College, 
which his Majesty had some time since given to our 
Society (i.e., the Royal Society), and would now purchase 
it again to build a hospital or infirmary for soldiers there, 
in which he desired my assistance, as on the Council of 
the Royal Society.'* There is certainly nothing in this 

* Evelyn's Diary, June 14, 1681. 

21* 



324 RIVAL SULTANAS 

passage to contradict the tradition which points to Nell 
as the originator of the project." 

In 1679 Nell had lost her mother, who, as recorded 
earlier in this volume, was drowned through falling 
accidentally into the water near the Neat Houses, at 
Chelsea, when, if Etherege is to be believed, in a not 
too sober condition. Nell had been very much 
attached to the old lady, who appears to have lived 
with her for some time in Pall Mall, and she gave her 
a sumptuous funeral at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 
where she herself was to be buried. Rochester, in 
his satire against Nell, found in this material for some 
of his bitterest taunts : 

Nor was her mother's funeral less her care ; 
No cost, no velvet did her daughter spare ; 
Fine gilded 'scutcheons did the Herse enrich 
To celebrate this Martyr of the Ditch ; 
Burnt brandy did in flaming Brimmers flow, 
Drank at her funeral, while her well-pleased shade 
Rejoiced even in the sober fields below 
At all the Drunkenness her Death had made. 

In September of the following year, a far worse loss 
befell Nell in the death of her younger son, James, 
Lord Beauclerk, who died in Paris, whither he had been 
sent to be educated. He was not quite nine years 
old. Some consolation awaited her, however, in the 
honours bestowed upon her surviving son, the little 
Earl of Burford, who, on January 10, 1683-4, a week 
after the death of old Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. 
Albans, was created Duke of St. Albans and ap- 
pointed to the then lucrative offices of Registrar of 
the Court of Chancery and Master Falconer of Eng- 
land. The latter office, though, of course, it is now a 




JOHN WILMOT, SECOND EARL OF ROCHESTER 
From a painting, probably by Wissing. 



NELL GWYN'S LETTERS 325 

purely honorary one, is still held by the present Duke 
of St. Albans. 

One of the few of Nell Gwyn's letters known to 
exist relates to this period of her life. It is not written 
by her, since she was so illiterate that she could not 
even sign her name, and was content with an E. G., 
but by an amanuensis, who wrote in a neat Italian 
hand, and is as follows : 

" These for Madam Jennings* over 
against the Tub Tavern in Jermyn Street, 
London. 

" Windsor, Burford House, 
"April 14, 1684. 
" Madam, — I have received y r Letter, and I desire 
yu would speake to my Ladie Williams to send me the 
Gold Stuffe & a Note with it, because I must sign it, 
then she shall have her money y e next day of Mr. 
Trant ; pray tell her Ladieship, that I will send her 
a Note of what Quantity of Things Fie have bought 
if her Ladieship will put herself to y e Trouble to buy 
them ; when they are bought, I will sign a Note 
for her to be payd. Pray Madam, let y r Man go on 
with my Sedan and send Potvinf and Mr. Coker down 
to me, for I want them both. The Bill is very dear 
to boyle the Plate, but necessity hath noe Law. I 
am afraid M m you have forgott my Mantle, which 
you were to line with Musk Colour Sattin, and all 

* Who this lady was is not known. 

t John Potvin. He was a fashionable upholsterer of the time, and his name 
appears as a witness to a power of attorney of Nell, published by the Camden 
Society in the " Privy Purse Expenses of the Reigns of Charles II. and 
James II." 



326 RIVAL SULTANAS 

my other Things, for you send me noe Patterns nor 
Answer. Monsieur Lainey is going away. Pray send 
me word about your son Criffin for his Majestie is 
mighty well pleased that he will goe along with my 
Lord Duke.* I am afraid you are so much taken up 
with your owne House, that you forget my Business. 
My service to dear Lord Kildare, and tell him I 
love him with all my heart. Pray M m see that 
Potvin brings now all my things with him : my Lord 
Duke's bed, etc., if he hath not made them all up, 
he may doe that here, for if I doe not get my Things 
out of his hands now, I shall not have them until 
this time twelvemonth. The Duke brought me down 
with him my Crochet of diamonds ; and I love it the 
better because he brought it. Mr. Lumby and everie 
body else will tell you that it is the finest Thing that 
ever was seen. Good M m speak to Mr. Beaver to come 
down too, that I may bespeake a ring for the Duke of 
Grafton before he goes to France. 

" I have continued extreme ill ever since you left 
me, and I am soe still. I have sent to London for a 
Dr. I believe I shall die. My service to the 
Duchess of Norfolk, and tell her I am as sick as her 
Grace, but do not know what I ayle, although shee 
does. . . . 

" Pray tell my Ladie Williams that the King's 
Mistresses are accounted ill paymasters, but shee 
shall have her Money the next day after I have the 
stuffe. 

" Here is a sad slaughter at Windsor, the young 
Mens taking y r Leaves and going to France, and, 

* Charles Beauclerk, Duke of St. Albans. 



NELL GWYN'S LETTERS 327 

although they are none of my Lovers, yet I am loath 
to part with the men. Mrs. Jennings, I love you with 
all my heart and soe good-bye. 

" E. G. 
" Let me have an answer to this letter."* 

Here is another of Nell's letters, belonging to an 
earlier date. It appears to have been written in 
August, 1678, and is addressed to Lawrence Hyde, 
afterwards Earl of Rochester, at that time Ambassador 
Extraordinary at The Hague. It was first published 
in the Camden Miscellany (vol. v.), with notes in 
explanation of the persons mentioned therein by 
John Bruce : — 

" Pray Deare Mr. Hide forgive me for not writeing 
to you before now, for the reasone is I have bin sick 
thre months, and since I recovered I have had no- 
thing to intertaine you withall, nor have nothing now 
worth writing, but that I can holde no longer to let 
you know I never have ben in any companie without 
drinking your health, for I love you with all my 
soule. The pel mel is now to me a dismale place, 
since I have utterly lost Sr. Car Scrope,f never to be 
recovered agane, for he tould me he could not live 

* This highly characteristic letter, which was published, we believe, for 
the first time by Cunningham in his " Story of Nell Gwyn," was discovered by 
Horace Walpole's correspondent, the Rev. William Cole, who sent a copy of 
it to his friend. Under date January 9, 1775, Walpole writes : " I every day 
intended to thank you for the copy of Nell Gwyn's letter, till it was too late ; 
the gout came and made me moult my goose quill. The letter is very curious, 
and I am as well content as with the original." 

t He was one of the witty companions of Charles II. and a versifier of some 
merit. He died in 1680. 



328 RIVAL SULTANAS 

alwayes at this rate, and so begune to be a little un- 
civil, which I could not suffer from an uglye baux 
garson. Mrs. Knight's* lady mother's dead, and she 
has put up a scutchin no beiger than my Lady Grin'sf 
scunchis. My lord Rochester J is gone in the 
countrei. Mr. Savil has got a misfortune, but is upon 
recovery and is to mary an hairess, who I think wont 
wont (sic) have an ill time ont if he holds up his 
thumb. My lord of Dorseit§ apiers worse in thre 
months, for he drinks aile with Shadwell|| and Mr. 
Haris^I at the Duke's home all day long. My lord 
Burford remembars his sarvis to you. My lord 
Bauclaire is is (sic) goeing into France. We are agoeing 
to sup with the King at Whitehall and my Lady 
Harvie. The King remembars his sarvis to you. 
Now lets talke of state affairs, for we never caried things 
so cunningly as now, for we don't know whether we 
shall have peace or war, but I am for war, and for no 
other reason but that you may come home. I have 
a thousand merry conseets, but I can't make write me, 
and therefore you must take the will for the deed. 
God bye. Your most loveing obedient faithfull and 
humbel sarvant " E. G." 

* Mrs. Knight was a singer of great ability, and had at one time been honoured 
by the King's attentions. 

"f Widow of Sir Edward Greene, Bart, of Sandford, in Essex. She was one 
of the King's mistresses and had two children by him — a son named Charles 
Fitz-Charles, who was created Earl of Plymouth in 1675 and died in 1680, 
and a daughter named Catherine. 

J John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who died in 1680, and whose title was 
conferred on Lawrence Hyde himself two years afterwards. 

§ Nell's old admirer, formerly Lord Buckhurst. 

|| Thomas Shadwell, afterwards Poet Laureate. 

^| Henry Harris, the actor. 



NELL GWYN'S LETTERS 329 

Although Nell's elder son had been created a duke, 
as had the sons of the Duchess of Cleveland and the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, she herself remained plain 
" Mrs." Gwyn. Nor can we be surprised at this, 
when we remember what a wide difference existed in 
social status between her and the ladies in question. 
Barbara Villiers was the daughter of a peer and the 
wife of a peer ; while Louise de Keroualle belonged 
to one of the most ancient families in Brittany. Their 
elevation, therefore, however much it might scandalize 
public opinion, did not outrage the feelings of the 
aristocracy. But to have ennobled the ex-orange-girl 
would have been an altogether different matter, and 
would have been regarded as an affront to the peerage, 
then an infinitely more exclusive body than it is in 
these democratic days. Nevertheless, there is reason 
to believe that at the beginning of 1685 Charles II. 
had decided to bestow a peerage upon Nell, the title 
selected for her being that of Countess of Green- 
wich.* If, however, such were really the case, death 
intervened before the patent could be made out. 

* In a MS. folio, entitled " The Royal Cedar/'Jby^Frederick van Bossen, 
compiled in 1688 occurs the following passage :— 

" Charles, the 2d naturall sone of King Charles the 2d borne of Hellenor 
or Nelguine, daughter to Thomas Gwine, a capitaine of an antient family in 
Wales, who showld bein advanced to be Countes of Greeniez (Greenwich) ; 
but hindered by the King's death, and she lived not long after his Matie. Item, 
he was advanced to the title of Duke Stablane [St. Albans] and Earl of Berward 
[Burfordj. He is not married." 



CHAPTER XXII 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 



OINCE his serious illness in the late summer of 
1679, Charles II., as we have mentioned, had 
never been the same man ; and, as time went on, it 
became apparent that the dissolute life he had led 
had begun to tell upon him and that his health was 
failing. In 1680 he had a bad attack of ague, and 
Henry Sidney notes in his diary that " they had all 
been sadly alarmed," and in May, 1682, a slight 
apoplectic stroke. From that moment, the change 
in him was still more marked. He showed on occasion 
an irritability hitherto quite foreign to his nature ; he 
seemed indisposed for any physical exertion, confining 
himself to a short walk twice daily in St. James's Park 
or the garden of Arlington House, and that merely 
for health's sake ; and on his evening visits to the 
Duchess of Portsmouth he often became so drowsy as to 
fall asleep in his chair. Towards the end of January, 
1685, he had a small sore on his heel, which pre- 
vented him from walking, and he accordingly took the 
air in a calash, attended by Thomas Bruce, afterwards 
Earl of Aylesbury, the gentleman-in- waiting who was 
330 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 331 

on duty that week, and to whose valuable memoirs, 
which remained unpublished until the end of the 
nineteenth century, we owe the most circumstantial 
account we possess of Charles II. 's last illness. 

On the evening of Sunday, February 1, the King 
seemed more like himself than he had been for a long 
time, and the gallery at Whitehall presented an 
unusually animated spectacle. " I can never forget," 
writes Evelyn, who was among those present, " the 
inexpressible luxury and profaneness, gaming and all 
dissoluteness, and, as it were, a total forgetfulness of 
God (it being Sunday evening) which this day se'nnight 
I was witness of : the King sitting and toying with 
his concubines, Portsmouth, Cleveland, Mazarin, etc., 
a French boy singing love songs, in that glorious 
gallery, while about twenty of the great courtiers and 
other dissolute persons were at Basset round a large 
table, a bank of at least two thousand in gold before 
them ; upon which two gentlemen who were with 
me made reflections with astonishment. Six days after 
all was in the dust." 

Thomas Bruce tells us that his father, the old Earl 
of Aylesbury, who lived at some distance from White- 
hall and seldom visited it, had come that evening, at 
his request, to attend the King's supper. Charles 
noticed him at once and spoke to him most graciously. 
" It is a great wonder, my Lord," said he, " for to 
see you at this hour, but I know very well the reason 
I never see you ; but I am ashamed that I have never 
given you more marks of my favour. But I will make 
it up to your son ; he is now about me, and we shall 
never part." " It is not to be expressed," continues 



332 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Bruce, " the transport of joy my father was in, and 
the old courtiers assured me that they never saw the 
King so well, nor in so good a humour." 

Charles " did eat with an excellent stomach, and 
one thing very hard of digestion — a goose egg if not 
two." After supper, he went, according to his custom, 
to the Duchess of Portsmouth's apartments, " for to 
amuse himself with the company that ate there ; " and 
Bruce, who followed him a little later, found him 
laughing and jesting with the company, and it was 
remarked on all sides that no one had ever seen the 
King in such good humour. 

It was Bruce's duty to light him to his bed- 
chamber. On reaching it, he handed the candle to 
the page of the backstairs. As he did so, the candle 
suddenly went out, " although a very large wax candle 
and without any wind." It was an age when many 
people still believed in omens and portents, as may 
be gathered from the writings of John Aubrey and 
others, and the page of the backstairs, who was one 
of them, looked at his companion in dismay and shook 
his head. The King, having already passed into 
his bedroom, had noticed nothing, and his good 
humour continued while he was preparing for bed. 
The conversation turned to the palace which was 
being built at Winchester, and which was now all but 
finished. 

" My Lord," said he to Bruce, " I do not remember 
that I ever saw you there." Bruce answered modestly 
that " his study was never to intrude himself as 
so many others did." " God's fish ! " rejoined the 
King, smiling, " modesty must sooner or later be 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 333 

rewarded, and when 'tis otherwise, 'tis the fault of 
the Sovereign, and not of the subject." (A great, 
good and noble expression from the mouth of a great 
King !) " I will order John " (a familiar word for 
the Earl of Bath, groom of the Stole, who was with 
the King as a boy), " to put you into waiting the first 
time I go thither, and although it be not your turn, 
that I may show you the place I delight so in." And 
he added : " I shall be so happy this week as to have 
my house covered with lead." " And God knows," 
observes Bruce, " the Saturday following he was put 
into his coffin ! " 

Bruce, who occupied a bed in the King's room, 
passed a far from comfortable night. " Several cir- 
cumstances made the lodging very uneasy — the great 
grate being filled with Scotch coal that burnt all 
night, a dozen dogs that came to our bed, and several 
pendulums that struck at the half, quarter, and all 
not going alike, it was a continual chiming." Charles, 
being used to these inconveniences, invariably slept 
soundly ; but Bruce, who slept but little, noticed 
that he appeared rather restless, and " turned himself 
sometimes, not usual for him." However, when 
morning came, the King called out, according to his 
custom, that he was going to rise, and Bruce " dis- 
covered not any imperfection " in his voice. But 
we will allow the chronicler to relate what followed 
in his own words : 

" We had the liberty to go to his bedside in the 
morning before anybody came in, and might enter- 
tain him with discourse at pleasure, and ask of him 
anything. Unfortunately, a certain modesty possessed 



334 RIVAL SULTANAS 

me, and, besides, we had his ear whenever we pleased. 
So I rose and turned back the brass knob [of the bed- 
chamber door], and the under ones came in to make 
the fire, and I retired to dress myself in our room. 
Passing by into the next room to the bedchamber, I 
found there the physicians and chirurgeons that 
attended to his heel. Mr. Robert Howard, Groom of 
the Bedchamber, came to me and asked me if the 
King had slept, and if quietly. I told him that he 
had turned sometimes. ' Lord ! ' said he, ' that is 
an ill mark, and contrary to his custom ; ' and then 
told me that at rising he could, or would not, say one 
word, that he was pale as ashes, and gone to his private 
closet. On which I came away presently and sent 
in Mr. Chiffins (sic), the first page of the backstairs 
and Keeper of the Closet, for to beg of him to come 
to his chamber, for a more bitter morning I never 
felt, and he only in his night-gown. Mr. Chiffins 
telling me he minded not what he said, I sent him in 
again (for no other had that liberty), on which he 
[the King] came out pale and wan, and had not the 
liberty of his tongue, for the Earl of Craven, Colonel 
of the foot-guards, being there to take the word, he 
showed him the paper where the days of the month 
were set down with the word ; and others spoke to 
him, but he answered nothing. It being shaving 
day, the barber told him all was ready. He always 
sat with his knees against the window, and the barber 
having fixed the linen on one side, went behind the 
chair to do the same on the other, and I, standing 
close to the chair, he fell into my arms in the most 
violent fit of apoplexy. Doctor King, that had been 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 335 

a chirurgeon, happened to be in the room of his own 
accord — the rest having retired before. I asked him 
if he had any lancets, and he replying he had, I ordered 
him to bleed the King without delay, which he did ; 
and, perceiving the blood, I went to fetch the Duke 
of York, who came so on the instant that he had one 
shoe and one slipper. At my return with the Duke, 
the King was in bed, and in a pretty good state, and 
going on the contrary side where the Duke was, he 
perceiving me, took me by the hand, saying, ' I see 
you love me dying as well as living,' and thanked me 
heartily for the orders I gave Dr. King (who was 
knighted for that service) to bleed him, as also for 
sending Mr. Chiffins to persuade him to come out 
of his closet ; and then told me that he found himself 
not well, and that he went to take some of his drops, 
commonly called the ' King's Drops,' and that he 
walked about hoping to be better, but on my solicita- 
tions he came down, for there were three or four steps 
coming out of the closet, and he said that coming 
down his head turned round, and he was in danger of 
falling." 

Lord Macaulay, in that masterpiece of descriptive 
writing in which he paints for us the last days of 
Charles II., asserts, on the authority of Burnet, that 
" for a short time, the Duchess of Portsmouth hung 
over him [the King] with the familiarity of a wife." 
But Burnet's statement does not accord with what 
Bruce tells us in his memoirs and is expressly refuted 
by that writer in a private letter to Mr. Leigh of 
Addlestone : 

" My good King and master falling upon me in 



336 RIVAL SULTANAS 

his fit, I ordered him to be blooded, and then I went 
to fetch the Duke of York ; and, when we came to 
the bedside, we found the Queen there, and the 
impostor says it was the Duchess of Portsmouth." 

On the following day, Charles appeared so much 
better that messengers were despatched in all directions 
to report that he was on the way to recovery. But 
this improvement was of very short duration and 
despite, or perhaps because of, all the blisterings, 
bleedings, and emetics to which the doctors had recourse, 
by Wednesday evening they were obliged to admit 
that he was in imminent danger. 

On Thursday, all the bishops then in London, with 
Sancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at their head, 
came to offer the King their spiritual service. " The 
Archbishop was of a timid temper and had a low voice, 
and Bishop Ken the contrary, one like to a nightingale 
for the sweetness of it, so he was desired by the rest 
to persuade the King to hearken to them." But, 
though on the very threshold of death, Charles resorted 
to that habit of polite evasion which had served him 
so often and so well in life. He was quite ready to 
be courteous to the bishops — courtesy was his point 
of honour — but he was determined not to take the 
Sacrament from their hands. " The King," con- 
tinues Bruce, " thanked them very much, and told 
them that it was time enough, or something to that 
purpose, and modestly waived them, which was in 
my hearing." 

Some attributed this disguised refusal to Charles's 
indifference to religion, but a few appear to have 
ascribed it to its true cause. Towards evening, the 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 337 

sick man grew perceptibly worse, and the doctors 
warned the Duke of York that he was " not like to 
live a day to an end."* 

It seems singular that James, who was, of course, 
aware why the King had declined to receive the Sacra- 
ment according to the rites of the Established Church, 
should not have done his very obvious duty. But 
the fact is that that prince was too much occupied in 
taking precautionary measures to assure his peaceable 
succession to the throne to have any time to think 
of his brother's soul. And it is only too probable 
that Charles would have been allowed to die without 
the consolations of religion, had not the Duchess of 
Portsmouth, who was one of the few in the secret of 
the King's religious convictions, taken upon herself 
to intervene. 

Forbidden by decency to approach her dying lover, 
she sent an urgent message to Barrillon, begging him 
to come to her at once, and, when he arrived, implored 
him to go to the Duke of York and persuade him to 
act before it should be too late. But let us listen to 
the Ambassador. 

" I found her," he writes, " overwhelmed with 
grief ; but, instead of speaking to me of her grief and 
of the loss she was on the point of sustaining, she 
went into her private cabinet and said to me : ' Mon- 
sieur Vambassadeufy I am going to tell you the greatest 
secret in the world, and I should lose my head if it 
were known. The King of England is at the bottom 
of his heart a Catholic ; but he is surrounded by 
Protestant bishops, and no one tells him of the 

* Burnet, " History of my own Times." 

22 



338 RIVAL SULTANAS 

condition in which he is in, or speaks to him of God. 
I cannot with decency re-enter the room ; besides that, 
the Queen is almost continually there. The Duke of 
York is thinking of his own affairs, and has too many 
of them to take the care that he ought of the King's 
conscience. Go and tell him that I have implored 
you to warn him to consider what can be done to save 
the King, his brother's, soul.' " 

By which speech, it will, we think, be admitted 
that Louise de Keroualle atoned for much. 

Barrillon hastened to carry out his instructions, 
and James, recalled thus to his duty, hastened to his 
brother's bedside, and, bending down, inquired if he 
should send for a priest. 

" For God's sake, brother, do, and lose no time ! " 
was the reply.* 

And then came the most dramatic incident of 
Charles's eventful life. Every one was ordered to leave 
the room, with the exception of the Earls of Bath and 
Feversham. A private door near the head of the 
King's bed opened, and Will Chiffinch — who had so 
often introduced persons of a very different character 
by that same door — ushered in a Benedictine monk 
bearing the sacred elements. The monk was John 
Huddlestone, who, when a secular priest, had contri- 
buted to save Charles's life at Mosely Hall after the 
fatal battle of Worcester, and had given him the first 
works of Catholic devotion which he had ever read. 
He had remained under the King's special protection, 
as one of the chaplains to the Queen, throughout the 

* Clarke, " Life of James II." 



THE DEATH OF CHARLES II 339 

reign, and had thus escaped the fate which befell so 
many of his brethren during the Popish terror. 

" As soon as the King saw the father come in, he 
cried out : ' You that saved my body is now come 
to save my soul.' This is literally true on a Christian.* 
The King made a general confession with a most true, 
hearty and sincere repentance, weeping and bewail- 
ing his sins, and he received what is styled all the rites 
of the Church, and like a true and hearty penitent. "f 

The monk withdrew by the way he had come, the 
door was opened, and nobles and prelates trooped 
back into the room. It was then that Charles made 
his famous apology for having " been an unconscionable 
time dying." He spoke with tenderness of his 
neglected wife. " The Queen (she having been 
present with him as long as her extraordinary passion 
would give her leave, which at length threw her into 
fits, not being able to speak while with him) sent a 
message to excuse her absence and to beg his pardon 
if ever she had offended him in all her life. He 
replied : ' Alas, poor woman ! She begs my pardon ! 
I beg hers with all my heart.' "| 

His sons were brought to him to receive his 
blessing, after which he summoned up all his re- 
maining strength to give his final injunctions to 
the Duke of York, " to which every one hearkened 
with great attention. He expressed his kindness to 
him, and that he now delivered all over to him with 
great joy. He recommended Lady Portsmouth over and 

* " On my word as a Christian," or " As I am a Christian." 
+ " Memoirs of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury." 
J Clarke, " Life of James II." 

22* 



$40 RIVAL SULTANAS 

over again to him. He said he had always loved her, 
and he loved her now to the last ; and besought the 
duke in as melting words as he could fetch out to be 
kind to her and her son ; and concluded, ' Let not poor 
Nelly starve ' : that was Mrs. Gwyn."* 

Soon afterwards he lost consciousness, and " just 
at high water and full moon at noon he expired,"f 
in the fifty-fifth year of his age and the twenty-fifth 
of his reign, or, if we reckon from the death of Charles I., 
in his thirty-seventh. " And to this hour," con- 
cludes Bruce — and his words are a striking testimony 
to the real devotion which Charles's winning manners 
and kindly consideration had inspired in those about 
his person — " I bewail my loss and that of the three 
kingdoms ! " 

• Burnet, " History of my own Times." 

■j- " Memoirs of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury." 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE LAST DAYS OF NELL GWYN 

/^HARLES II.'s dying request to his brother on 
^■^ behalf of " poor Nelly " was urgently needed, 
for the loss of her royal protector left that lady in a 
most unenviable situation. She had been far too 
extravagant and generous-hearted ever to trouble 
herself about keeping within the allowance assigned 
to her, much less of putting by against a rainy day; 
and the fact that only a few months previously she 
had been obliged to have part at least of her plate 
melted down because " necessity hath no law," proves 
that she must even then have been pressed by her 
creditors. Now that Charles was dead, and the 
security on which they had counted had died with 
him, they swooped down upon her like a flock of 
vultures, and she found herself face to face with ruin. 
In her efforts to satisfy their demands, she appears 
to have sold most of her jewellery, including the 
magnificent pearl-necklace which Prince Rupert had 
given to Peg Hughes, and which, after the prince's 
death, she had purchased from her for over four 
thousand guineas.* 

* In Lely's two portraits of Nell at Althorp and in another by Varelst at 
Littlecotes she it represented wearing this necklace. 

341 



342 RIVAL SULTANAS 

But it was to no purpose, and in the spring of 1685 
she was declared an outlaw for her debts and in 
hourly danger of being thrown into prison. 

The new King, however, had not forgotten his 
brother's dying request, besides which he had always 
been on excellent terms with Nell ; and he had no 
intention of allowing her to want. His secret service 
expenses for that year record the payment of 
£729 2s. 3d. to Richard Graham, Esq., " to be by him 
paid over to the several tradesmen, creditors of Mrs. 
Ellen Gwyn, in satisfaction of their debts for which 
the said Ellen stood outlawed." Some months later, 
two additional payments of £500 each were made 
to her, by way of royal bounty, and an allowance of 
.£1,500 a year assigned to her ; and in 1687 the same 
book of accounts shows a payment to Sir Stephen 
Fox, Commissioner of the Treasury, of .£1,256 or. 2d. 
for so much by him paid to Sir Richard Clayton, in 
full of .£3,774 2s. 6d., to redeem the mortgages to Sir 
John Musters, of Bestwood Park,* " for settling the 
same for life upon Mrs. Ellen Gwyn and, after her 
death, upon the Duke of St. Albans and his issue male, 
with the reversion in the Crown. "f 

James's kindness to Nell, and his well-known 
zeal for making proselytes, gave rise to a rumour that 
she was about to join the Church of Rome. Under 
date January 19, 1685-6, Evelyn writes : " Dryden, 

* Bestwood Park, in Nottinghamshire, on the borders of Sherwood Forest, 
had for centuries been an appurtenance of the Crown. Richard III. was at 
Bestwood when he heard of Henry Tudor's approach. It is still the property 
of the Duke of St. Albans. 

f " Secret Service Expenses of Charles II. and James II." (printed for the 
Camden Society.) 



THE LAST DAYS OF NELL GWYN 343 

the famous play-writer, and his two sons and Mrs. 
Nelly (Miss to the late King) were said to go to Mass ; 
such proselytes are no great loss to the Church." 

This rumour was true enough as regards Dryden 
and his son, but certainly not in regard to Nell, who 
in her last illness received the spiritual adminis- 
trations of Tenison, then Vicar of St. Martin's-in- 
the-Fields, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, 
and was buried according to Protestant forms in a 
Protestant church ; while in her will she speaks of 
Roman Catholics as " those who differ from me in 
religion." The report, however, that she had attended 
Mass was no doubt correct, for we can well understand 
that she may have thought it politic to please the new 
King by consenting to do so and perhaps to receive 
instruction from Catholic priests. However, she re- 
sisted the attempts to detach her from the Reformed 
Faith, and those who may be tempted to smile at the 
idea that such a woman should have troubled herself 
about religion must remember that in those days of 
bitter sectarian animosity a warm attachment to a 
creed was not considered inconsistent with a very 
irregular life. James II., who sacrificed his crown 
to his proselytizing zeal, appears to have entertained 
very little respect for the Seventh Commandment. 

Nell did not long survive her royal lover. Although 
she was still a young woman, she appears to have been 
in very indifferent health for some time. Towards 
the end of March, 1687, she had an attack of apoplexy, 
and Luttrell recorded that " her recovery was much 
doubted "* ; and, though she lived for some months, 

* " Brief Relation of State Affairs." 



344 RIVAL SULTANAS 

a second attack in the following November proved 
fatal. The exact day of her death is uncertain, but 
it is believed to have been on the 14th of the month. 

At the beginning of July, she had made her will, 
in which, after, " in the hope of a joyful resurrection, 
recommending herself whence she came, her soul into 
the hands of Almighty God and her body into the 
earth," she left all her property to her " dear natural 
son, his Grace the Duke of St. Albans, a.nd to the heirs 
of his body," and appointed Lawrence Hyde, Earl 
of Rochester, Thomas, Earl of Pembroke, Sir Robert 
Sawyer, the Attorney-General, and Henry Sidney her 
executors, bequeathing " all and every of them £100 
a-piece of lawful money, in consideration of their care 
and trouble herein, and, furthermore, all their several 
and respective expenses and charges in and about the 
execution of this my will." 

To this, three months later, was added a codicil, 
written on a separate sheet of paper, and called : — 

The last request of Mrs. Ellin* Gwynn to his Grace 
the Duke of St. Albans, made October the 18 th, 1687. 

1. I desire I may be buried in the church of St. 
Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

2. That Dr. Tenison may preach my funeral 
sermon. 

3. That there may be a decent pulpit-cloth and 
cushion given to St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

4. That he [the Duke] would give one hundred 
pounds for the use of the said St. Martin's and St. 




From a painting by Si 



NELL GWYN 
Peter Lelj at Althorp, photographed by hi 



,! permission oi Earl Spencer. 



THE LAST DAYS OF NELL GWYN 345 

James's, Westminster, to be given into the hands of 
the said Dr. Tenison,* to be disposed of at his dis- 
cretion, for taking any poor debtors of the said parish 
out of prison, and for cloaths this winter, and other 
necessaries, as he shall find most fit. 

5. That for showing my charity to those who differ 
from me in religion, I desire that fifty pounds may 
be put into the hands of Dr. Tenison and Mr. Warner, 
who, taking to them any two persons of the Roman 
Religion, may dispose of it for the use of the poor of 
that religion inhabiting the parish of St. James's 
aforesaid. 

6. That Mrs. Rose Forsterf may have two hundred 
pounds given her any time within a year after my 
decease. 

7. That Jo, my porter, may have ten pounds given 
him. 

My request to his Grace is, further : 

8. That my present nurses may have ten pounds 
each, and mourning, besides their wages due to them. 

9. That my present servants may have their mourn- 
ing each, and a year's wages, besides their wages due. 

10. That the Lady FairborneJ may have fifty 
pounds given to her to buy a ring. 

11. That my kinsman, Mr. Cholmley, may have 
one hundred pounds given to him within a year after 
this date. 

* From 1686-1692 Tenison was rector of St. James's, Westminster, or St. 
James's, Piccadilly, as it is now called, as well of St. Martin' s-in-the-Fields. 
f Nell Gwyn's sister. See p. 42 supra. 
\ Wife of Sir Palmer Fairborne. 



346 RIVAL SULTANAS 

12. That his Grace would be pleased to lay out 
twenty pounds yearly for the releasing of poor debtors 
out of prison every Christmas-day. 

13. That Mr. John Warner may have fifty pounds 
given him to buy a ring. 

14. That the Lady Hollyman may have the pen- 
sion of ten shillings per week continued during the 
said lady's life. 

Oct. 18 — 87. This request was attested and acknow- 
ledged in the presence of us, 

John Hetherington. 
Hannah Grace. 
Daniel Dyer. 

This document, often quoted as an illustration of 
Nell's kindness of heart, reveals, as Mr. Cecil 
Chesterton has well observed, a rarer and perhaps more 
important quality : real sympathy with the poor, that 
is to say, a capacity for feeling with them, and not 
merely for them. " Notice the repeated injunctions 
as to getting debtors out of prison. No mere benevo- 
lent rich man would ever have thought of such a form 
of charity. Nellie thought of it, because she knew. 
Her own father is said to have died in a debtor's 
prison. In the world in which her childhood was 
passed, arrest for debt was probably the standing 
terror for the poor, as distraint for rent is to-day. . . . 
When I find a philanthropist leaving money to pay 
out the bailiffs for people whose rent is unpaid, I 
shall think him fit to rank with Nell as an example of 
practical charity." 

In her last illness, she exhibited a sincere repentance 



THE LAST DAYS OF NELL GWYN 347 

for her past life. Cibber states in his " Apology " 
that he had been informed on unquestioned authority 
that " her repentance in her last hours appeared in 
the contrite symptoms of a Christian sincerity ; " 
while Wigmore wrote to Sir George Etherege, then 
Envoy at Ratisbon : " She is said to have died 
piously and penitently ; and, as she dispensed several 
charities in her lifetime, so she left several such legacies 
at her death." 

On November 17 Nell was buried, in accordance 
with her own request, in the church of St. Martin's- 
in-the-Fields, where her mother had been laid to rest 
eight years before. It was not a particularly ostenta- 
tious ceremony, considering the style in which funerals 
were then commonly conducted, the expenses amounting 
to ^375, which was advanced by Sir Stephen Fox, 
the Commissioner of the Treasury, from the next 
quarterly instalment of the pension of .£1,500 a year 
which James II. had assigned her and which was to 
be continued to her son, the Duke of St. Albans. 

Dr. Tenison complied with her request and preached 
the funeral sermon to a crowded congregation, for 
Nell had been immensely popular, and the rector of 
St. Martin's was " one of the most profitable preachers 
in the Church of England."* What the good man 
said — except that he said " much to her praise " — is 
not recorded, for, though a pamphlet purporting to be 

* Evelyn, March 21, 1683. The diarist adds that he was "also of a most 
holy conversation and most learned and ingenuous ; " and expresses a fear that 
" the pains he takes and the care of his parish will wear him out, which would 
be an inexpressible loss." Tenison had ministered to the notorious Edward 
Turberville (December, 1681), to Sir Thomas Armstrong at Tyburn (June, 
1684), and to the Duke of Monmouth before his execution in July, 1685. 



348 RIVAL SULTANAS 

Nell's oraison funebre was afterwards printed and 
hawked about the streets, the preacher hastened to 
denounce it as " the forgery of some mercenary- 
people." 

It was certainly a bold thing of Tenison to preach 
such a sermon, and he did not escape censure. When, 
four years later, the see of Lincoln became vacant, and 
Tenison was on the point of being nominated to it, 
Viscount Villiers, afterwards the first Earl of Jersey, 
Master of the Horse to Queen Mary, who desired 
the promotion of a protege of his own, took upon him- 
self to remonstrate against the proposed appointment, 
on the ground that the rector of St. Martin's had 
preached " a notable funeral sermon in praise of Ellen 
Gwyn." But the wife of William of Orange was not 
to be influenced by so poor an argument, and her 
reply did credit to her good sense. " I have heard 
as much," said she, " and this is a sign that the poor 
unfortunate woman died penitent ; for, if I have read 
a man's heart through his looks, had she not made 
a truly pious end, the doctor could never have been 
induced to speak well of her." 

And so Tenison obtained the vacant see, which 
was to prove a stepping-stone to the highest office in 
the Church. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

EXEUNT PORTSMOUTH AND MAZARIN 

A N hour after the death of Charles II., the new 
King went to visit the Duchess of Portsmouth 
and gave her, Barrillon tells us, " many assurances of 
his protection and friendship." Policy, rather than 
any personal regard for his late brother's mistress, was 
the motive for this step. James, as was very soon to 
appear, cherished projects which were not likely to 
commend themselves to his people, and for the execu- 
tion of which money was essential ; and, except in a 
Parliamentary way, there was no means of obtaining 
the money he required, unless he obtained it, as Charles 
had done, from the King of France. His immediate 
object, therefore, was to persuade Louis XIV. to 
continue in his favour the subsidy which he had paid 
his brother. Hence, it was obviously to his interest 
to treat the duchess, who enjoyed the favour and confi- 
dence of Louis, with every consideration. 

That monarch, on his side, sent the bereaved lady, 
through Barrillon, an assurance of the continuance 
of his protection, which the Ambassador informs his 
master, " had given her the only consolation she had 
had since the death of the late King ; " and when, 
349 



350 RIVAL SULTANAS 

at the beginning of March, James II. had the bad taste 
to deprive the little Duke of Richmond of the post of 
Master of the Horse, which the boy's father had given 
him, he instructed Barrillon to let his Majesty under- 
stand that he was greatly surprised at such an act. 

James, alarmed at his paymaster's displeasure, visited 
the duchess and explained to her that the reason he 
had deprived the Duke of Richmond of the Mastership 
of the Horse was the inconvenience which would arise 
from leaving so important a post in the hands of a boy 
of thirteen, who would be unable properly to discharge 
the duties attached to it for some years to come. He 
paid her a sum of over £12,000, which was probably 
the final instalment of the £100,000, which the late 
King had promised her, and granted her a pension of 
£3,000 for herself and £2,000 for Richmond, which 
she asked should be combined into one of £5,000 for 
her son. But she claimed in vain the fulfilment of a 
supposed promise by Charles II. of a large Irish estate 
or interest worth from twenty-five to thirty thousand 
pounds. " This," wrote Barrillon, " joined to her 
disgust at seeing the Duke of Richmond dispossessed of 
the charge of Master of the Horse, has caused her to 
speak a little freely, and she often complains that her 
services are forgotten." 

But if James were inclined to forget her services, the 
nation was not ; and its conviction that she had been 
the principal cause of the close alliance between the late 
King and Louis XIV. had rendered her so generally 
odious as to make it appear highly probable that when 
the Parliament which had been summoned should 
meet, a direct attack would be made upon her. Appre- 



EXEUNT PORTSMOUTH AND MAZARIN 351 

hensive of this, and dissatisfied with the treatment she 
had received from James, she resolved to return to 
France, and in August she took her departure, accom- 
panied by her son. The King, though probably a good 
deal relieved at her decision, took leave of her very 
cordially, promised that her apartments at Whitehall 
should be reserved for her,* and exhorted the Duke of 
Richmond to embrace the Catholic faith. 

" Thus," observes the duchess's historian, M. For- 
neron, " England emerged from the French servitude. 
Not that James II. was more insensible to the livres 
tournois than his brother ; but his fanatical and 
narrow mind, the baseness of his sentiments, brought 
his reign to a speedy termination. The great adversary 
of Louis XIV., William of Orange, ascended the English 
throne. The disasters foreseen by the diplomatists and 
retarded by Louise de Keroualle accumulated upon 
France." 

A year after the departure of the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth for France, she returned to England and remained 
there until July, 1688. Whether this visit appeared 
suspicious to Louis XIV., or whether because, according 
to Saint-Simon, the duchess had permitted herself to 
indulge in some rather outspoken criticisms of Madame 
de Maintenon, Louvois received orders to send her 
a lettre de cachet exiling her. Courtin, however, who 
happened to see this document in Louvois's cabinet 

* But as little as two years later, we hear that " the fine crystal glass in the 
windows of her luxurious apart-ments at the end of the Long Gallery had dis- 
appeared and the holes stopp't up with straw very scandalously " (Verney 
Memoirs). In April, 1691, her apartments and all the treasures she had 
accumulated in them were destroyed by a fire. 



352 RIVAL SULTANAS 

one day when he had called to see the Minister, inter- 
ceded for her, declaring that it would be dishonourable 
to forget the services she had rendered France ; and 
Louis XIV. burned the lettre de cachet with his own 
hands. 

When James II. lost his throne, the duchess lost her 
pension, for, though she reminded William of Orange, 
through Henry Sidney, of the supposed services she had 
rendered him during the struggle over the Exclusion 
Bill, he declined to continue it. 

Early in 1692, the Duke of Richmond, who had joined 
the Church of Rome and had served for a time in the 
French Army, took his departure for England, " without 
saying a word about his journey to any one,"* where 
he reverted to the Reformed Faith and was reconciled 
to the new regime. 

The duke was an extremely handsome young man, 
with the easy and pleasant manners of his royal father, 
but, as his descendant, the present Earl of March, is 
fain to admit, " there can be no denying that, in his 
later years, lax principles and a love of dissipation 
formed very prominent features of his character."f 

His mother, in a letter to Louis XIV., declared that 
she was " in despair " at the conduct of her son, and 
this was no doubt true enough, since the King had 
conferred upon Richmond a pension of 20,000 livres, 
which did something to console the duchess for the loss 
of her English revenues. However, Louis very gener- 
ously continued to her the pension which her son had 
forfeited. 

• Dangeau. 

•f " A Duke and his Friends" (Hutchinson, 191 1). 



CHARLES LENNOX, EIRST DIKE OF RICHMOND K.G. 
From a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the collection of the Duke or Richmond, K.<,. 



EXEUNT PORTSMOUTH AND MAZARIN 353 

From that time, the duchess appears to have devoted 
herself to the care of her estate of Aubigny, but, owing 
to a variety of causes, the chief of which seems to have 
been her love of gambling and the inability to shake off 
the extravagant habits she had contracted in England, 
she found herself ere long in serious pecuniary difficul- 
ties ; and but for the intervention of Louis XIV., who, 
in September, 1699, issued a royal decree staying the 
proceedings which had been instituted against her for a 
period of twelve months, and renewed the same on the 
petition of the duchess year after year until the end 
of his reign, Aubigny would have been seized by her 
creditors. 

Nor was it only against her creditors that the duchess 
found a support in the decrees of the Royal Council. 
In 1703 Louis supported her claims for compensation 
against the Estates of Brittany, when her father's manor 
near Brest was appropriated by the Government for the 
construction of the harbour and arsenal, and compelled 
them to pay her over 50,000 livres. 

Under the Regency, her pension was increased to 
24,000 livres ; but experience had taught her to dis- 
trust pensions, and, accordingly, at her request, it was, 
in 1 72 1, commuted for the sum of 600,000 livres, "in 
consideration of the great services which she has rendered 
France, and to give her means to support her rank and 
dignity." 

In 1 71 5 she had paid a visit to England, in the hope 
of getting a pension or an annuity out of George I. ; but 
her journey was a fruitless one. 

The Duchess of Portsmouth outlived all her contem- 
poraries and died in Paris, where she had come for 

23 



354 RIVAL SULTANAS 

medical advice, on November 14, 1734, at the age of 
eighty-five, having survived Charles II. by nearly half a 
century, and their son, the first Duke of Richmond, who 
died in 1723, by eleven years. In her latter days, which 
were passed in retirement at the Chateau of Aubigny, 
she is said to have become very devout, and, to make 
some atonement for her past sins, she founded a convent 
for hospital nuns on her estate and gave a good deal 
of money for the decoration of churches. She appears 
to have retained some traces of the beauty which had 
captivated Charles II. almost to the end of her life, for 
George Selwyn, who saw her when she was over eighty, 
says that she was still attractive. She was buried in 
the Church of the Barefooted Carmelites, in the chapel 
of her ancestors of the House of Rieux. 

A few words must be said concerning the later years 
of the Duchesse de Mazarin. 

Once having recovered the pension of which her 
Intrigue with the Prince de Monaco had caused her 
to be deprived, the duchess subsided contentedly 
enough into the position of a favourite of the second 
rank ; for she was neither proud nor mercenary, and 
the partial defection of Charles II. gave her more 
leisure to devote to other and perhaps more welcome 
admirers. In her apartments at St. James's, she led 
a very agreeable existence, and " found herself sur- 
rounded by all the noblest and most witty persons 
whom England possessed." One of the habitues of 
this little Court, Saint-Evremond, has left us the 
following picture of it : 

" Freedom and discretion are equally to be found 



EXEUNT PORTSMOUTH AND MAZARIN 355 

there. Everyone is made more at home than in his 
own house and treated with more respect than at 
Court. It is true that there are frequent disputes 
there, but they are those of knowledge not of anger. 
There is play there, but it is inconsiderable and only 
practised for the sake of amusement. You discover 
in no countenance the fear of losing, nor concern for 
what is lost. Play is followed by the most excellent 
repasts in the world. There you will find whatever 
delicacy is brought from France and whatever is 
curious from the Indies. There is neither a plenty 
that gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality 
that discovers penury or meanness." 

Among the most frequent visitors were Nell Gwyn's 
former admirer, the Earl of Dorset ; Dr. Vossius, 
Canon of Windsor ; the Protestant refugee Justel, and 
the poet Waller. 

It will thus be seen that the duchess had begun to 
form a decided taste for intellectual pleasures ; but 
this did not prevent her from continuing to indulge 
in numerous gallantries, one of which had a tragic 
termination. In 1684, her nephew, the Chevalier de 
Soissons, youngest son of her sister Olympe, Comtesse 
de Soissons, visited England, and conceived for his 
aunt, who, though now approaching her fortieth year 
and already a grandmother, was still almost as beau- 
tiful as ever, a most violent passion. The latter, 
however, repulsed him with horror, her heart at that 
moment being fully occupied by a fascinating Swedish 
nobleman, the Baron de Banier, son of the general of 
that name who had distinguished himself under Gustavus 
Adolphus. Mad with jealousy, the chevalier challenged 

23* 



356 RIVAL SULTANAS 

the baron to a duel, and wounded him so severely that 
he died a few days later. " I have told my son," 
wrote Madame de Sevigne, " about this combat of the 
Chevalier de Soissons. We could not have believed that 
the eyes of a grandmother could work such havoc." 

This affair caused a terrible scandal, and M. de 
Soissons had to stand his trial for manslaughter. 
Madame de Mazarin was in despair ; she denied herself 
to nearly all her friends, draped her rooms in black, 
and spoke of withdrawing to a convent in Spain. But 
this desire for a conventual life did not last long, and 
was replaced by a violent passion for play, and in 
particular for the fascinating game of bassette, which 
absorbed her to the exclusion of all other interests. 

When the Revolution came, the duchess, as a relative 
of James II. 's queen, naturally found herself regarded 
with suspicion by the triumphant party, which de- 
manded her expulsion. However, her friends were 
sufficiently influential to interest the new King in 
her favour, and not only to obtain permission for her 
to remain in England, but also a new pension ; for 
the one which she had received from Charles II., and 
which had been continued by his brother, had, of course, 
ceased with the fallen dynasty. However, William III., 
being neither a lover nor a relative, did not feel justi- 
fied in allowing the lady more than half the sum which 
she had hitherto been receiving, and, although Madame 
de Mazarin succeeded in continuing to the end the 
appearance of a princely existence, it was only by the 
aid of confiding tradesmen. 

During the last years of her life, she appears to have 
become too much addicted to the pleasures of the 



EXEUNT PORTSMOUTH AND MAZARIN 357 

table, particularly in the matter of wine and strong 
waters ; and the rhyming epistles which Saint- 
Evremond addressed to her contain certain counsels 
of temperance which are for us distinctly unpleasing 
revelations : 

" Beaute des models cherie 
Et de moi plus que ma vie ! 
Moins d'eaux fortes, de vins blancs 
Vous irez jusqu'a cent ans. 

Mais que le ciel vous envoie 
Double rate et double foie, 
L'eau de Madame Huet 
Vous les sechera tout net. 
Contre eau d'anis, eau d'absinthe, 
Qu'on boit en tasse de pinte, 
Vos poumons ne tiendront pas. 

Et votre cceur doux et tendre, 
Qu'ont fait les dieux pour se rendre 
Au service des amants, 
Perira par vos vins blancs. 

These excesses no doubt hastened the duchess's 
end, and it would, indeed, have needed a constitution of 
iron to have withstood for any length of time " absinthe 
en tasse de pinteP In the spring of 1699, she fell 
seriously ill, and on the following July 2 she died at 
a house which she had at Chelsea — then, of course, 
only a village — to which she had removed in the 
hope that the air and repose of the country might 
afford her some relief. She was only fifty-three. 

The inconsolable Saint-Evremond, whose devotion 
blinded him to his idol's faults, wrote to a friend : 
" She had been the most beautiful woman in the world, 
and her beauty preserved its splendour up to the last 
moment of her life. She had been the greatest 
heiress in Europe, and magnificent, though poor, she 



358 RIVAL SULTANAS 

had lived more honourably than the most opulent 
could do. Elle est mort serieusement avec une indifference 
chretienne -pour la vie." 

In death Hortense fell into the hands of the 
husband whom she had so successfully evaded during 
life. For no sooner was she dead, than her creditors 
seized her corpse, which no one but M. de Mazarin 
was rich enough to redeem. That nobleman caused 
it to be brought back to France, and, if we are to 
believe Saint-Simon, marched it about with him 
from place to place. Finally, after a temporary inter- 
ment at Notre-Dame-de-Liesse, it was laid to rest 
in Mazarin's tomb. 

Madame de Mazarin had four children : a son, Paul 
Jules, Due de Mazarin et de la Meilleraye (1667-1731), 
and three daughters, Marie Charlotte (1662- 1729), 
married to the Marquis de Richelieu, who carried 
her off from a convent to which her father had con- 
signed her ; Marie Anne (1663- 1720), who took the 
veil and became Abbess of Lys, and Marie Olympe, 
born in 1665, who married the Marquis de Belief onds. 

Paul Jules had a son, Gui Paul Jules, Due de 
Mazarin et de la Meilleraye, on whose death in 1738 
the male branch of the family became extinct, and a 
daughter, Armande Felicite, who married Louis de 
Mailly, Marquis de Nesle, and became the mother of 
five daughters, four of whom, the Comtesse de Mailly, 
the Comtesse de Vintimille, the Duchesse de Lauraguais, 
and the Marquise de la Tournelle (better known under 
the title of Duchesse de Chateauroux), carried on the 
amorous traditions of their beautiful ancestress by be- 
coming successively the mistresses of Louis XV. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



" Abhorrers," 274. 

Ailesbury, Thomas Bruce, Earl of, 

(cited) 70, 292 et seq., 327, 330 

et seq. 
Airy, Mr. Osmund, (cited) 3 et seq., 

23-4, 69, 158, 179, 180, 221, 257, 

267, 277. 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 94 et seq. 
Albemarle, Duke of, 32. 
Albemarle, Earl of, 85. 
Anne, Countess of Sussex. See 

Sussex. 
Anne of Austria, 149. 
Anne, Queen of England, 312. 
Anglesey, Earl of, 49. 
Arlington, Countess of, 117, 120 

et seq. 
Arlington, Henry Bennet, Earl of, 

7, 17, 19, 96, 106, 113, 115, 117, 

120 et seq., \\7, 157-8. 
Armorer, Sir Nicholas, 84. 
Armstrong, Sir Thomas, 112, 347 

note. 
Arundel. See Wardour. 
Ashley. See Shaftesbury. 
Aubigny, 149 et seq., 164, 170-1, 319, 

320, 353-4. 
Aubrey, John, 332. 



B 



Bagot, Mary. See Dorset. 

Baker, Mr., 33 note. 

Banier, Baron de, 355-6. 

Banks, John, his play, Unhappy 
Favourite, 87. 

Barrillon, 312; appointed French 
Ambassador, 223-4 ; his charac- 
ter, 224-5 .' an d tne financial 
transactions of King Charles 
and Louis XIV., 225-6 ; and the 



Barrillon — continued. 

marriage of William and Mary, 
226 et seq., 261 ; bribery and, 
235-6, 284 ; and the Danby 
letters, 243 ; King Charles pleads 
for assistance to, 260 et seq. ; and 
the enmity of England towards 
Catholics, 273 ; stirs up strife 
between Charles and his Parlia- 
ment, 275 ; and the succession 
to the English throne, 289 ; 
cited, 253, 266-7, 272, 290, 303, 
305 note, 306-7, 313 et seq., 
337-8. 349, 350. 

Barlow, Mrs. See Walter. 

Bath, Earl of, 333, 338. 

Beauclerk, James, Lord, 324. 

Beauclerk, Lady, 214. 

Beaufort, Due de, 104. 

Beaumelle, La, 119. 

Beaumont and Fletcher, 64 ; their 
plays : The Humourous Lieu- 
tenant, 38, 44, 53 ; The Two 
Noble Kinsmen, see Davenant ; 
The Wild Goose-Chase, 63. 

Bedloe, William, 246, 251, 255. 

Behn, Aphra, her plays, Young 
King, 43 ; Rover, 87 ; Sir 
Patient Fancy, 87. 

Belassis, Lord, 251. 

Bellefonds, Marechal de, 113, 154. 

Bellefonds, Olympe, Marquise de, 
358. 

Bellings, Sir Richard, 96. 

Bennet, Colonel. See Arlington. 

Berghe, Van der, 9. 

Berkeley, Sir Charles, 20. 

Berkshire, Earl of, 218. 

Betterton, Thomas, 35, 37, 50. 

Betterton, Mrs. Thomas, 35, 38, 50. 

Blanquefort, Marquis de, 28. 

Bossen, Frederick Van, 329. 

Bouillon, Due de, 146. 

Bouillon, Duchesse de, 177 note. 



362 



INDEX 



Bretonvilliers, Madame de, 193. 

Brouardel, Prof. Paul, 111 note. 

Browne, Sir Richard, 103 note. 

Bruce. See Ailesbury. 

Buckhurst. See Earl of Dorset. 

Buckingham, George Villiers, 
second Duke of, and Charles II. 
and " La Belle Stuart," 19 ; his 
wit, 54 ; and the Treaty of 
Dover, 107, 114 ; and the death 
of Madame, 1 13-14 ; acts as inter- 
mediary between Charles and 
Mile, de Keroualle, 115 et seq. ; 
and the Duchess of Cleveland's 
intrigue, 135 ; places himself at 
the disposal of Louis XIV., 153 
et seq. ; attacked by Commons 
and Lords, 157-8 ; deprived of 
all employments, 158 ; and Nell 
Gwyn's income, 170 ; com- 
mitted to the Tower, 219, 220. 

Buckingham, John Sheffield, Duke 
of, his play, The Rehearsal, 34, 
92 note. 

Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop of Salis- 
bury, 69, 307, {cited) 13, 23-4, 68, 
91-7, 117, 128, 170 note, 250, 
277, 280, 311, 319, 335, 337, 340. 

Bute, Marquess of, 9. 

Butler, Samuel, 53 ; his Hudibras, 
70. 



Calloet, M. de, 165. 

Canterbury, Archbishops of. See 
Sancroft, Tennison. 

Carlingford, Earl of, 7. 

Carlisle, Countess of, 305. 

Carr, Sir Robert, 85. 

Cartwright, William, 34. 

Castlemaine, Countess of. See 
Duchess of Cleveland. 

Castlemaine, Earl of, 11, 13 et seq. 

Catherine of Braganza, Queen of 
Charles II., 7, 13 et seq., 18, 22, 
60, 116, 133-4, 198, 251, 308, 313, 
336 et seq. 

Cavendish, Lord, 293. 

Chanvallon, Harlay de (Archbishop 
of Paris), 185, 193, 241 note. 

Charles I. of England, 288. 

Charles II. : his relations with 
his mistresses described by Hali- 
fax, 1,2; his natural son, James 
de la Cloche, 3, 4 ; his liaison 
with Lucy Walter, 5 et seq. ; 



Charles II. — continued. 

beginning of his relations with 
Barbara Villiers, 13 ; creates 
her complaisant husband Earl 
of Castlemaine, 13 ; marries 
Catherine of Braganza, 13 ; 
forces his unwilling consort to 
receive his mistress, 14, 15 ; 
assigns Lady Castlemaine lodg- 
ings at Whitehall, 17 ; enam- 
oured of Frances Stuart ("La 
Belle Stuart "), 19 ; refuses at 
first to acknowledge Lady Castle- 
maine' s second son, 20 ; quarrel 
and reconciliation with that lady, 

21 ; lavishes immense sums 
upon her, 22 ; continues his 
pursuit of " La Belle Stuart," 

22 ; reported to be contem- 
plating marriage with her, in 
the event of the Queen's demise, 

23 ; his fury at her elopement 
with the Duke of Richmond, 
24, 25 ; " mighty hot upon the 
Duchess of Richmond," 26 ; dis- 
graces Clarendon, 28 ; an en- 
thusiastic playgoer, 31 ; makes 
Moll Davis his mistress, 59 ; 
" sends several times for Nelly," 
63 ; visits Nell Gwyn secretly 
in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 64 ; 
upsets theatrical arrangements 
by his attentions to leading 
ladies, 65 ; has a son by Nell 
Gwyn, 66 ; explanation of his 
permanent attachment to Nell, 
68, 69 ; popular conception of 
him very far removed from the 
truth, 69 ; his great abilities, 
72 ; his encouragement of the 
drama, 72 ; his fondness for 
chemistry, 72 and note ; his 
affable manners the keynote of 
his popularity, 73, 74 ; sublimely 
indifferent to what was said or 
thought about him, 74 ; sleeps 
during sermon-time, 75 ; his 
temper seldom ruffled, 75 ; " an 
exact knower of mankind," jj ; 
an admirable raconteur, 78 ; his 
wit, 78 et seq. ; and the pick- 
pocket, 80, 81 ; his active habits, 
81 ; an indefatigable walker, 82 ; 
his knowledge of horses, 82 ; his 
patronage of Newmarket, 83 
et seq. ; his success as a gentle- 
man jockey, 85, 86 ; gives Nell 



INDEX 



363 



Charles II. — continued. 

Gwyn the freehold of a house 
in Pall Mall, 88 ; settles Burford 
House, Windsor, upon her, 90, 
91 ; impertinent allusion to his 
amours by Sir John Coventry in 
the House of Commons, 91 ; 
takes vengeance upon Coventry, 
91, 92 ; begins his secret negotia- 
tions with Louis XIV., 95 ; his 
motives, 95 et seq. ; and the Abbe 
Pregnani, 98 et seq. ; and the 
Treaty of Dover, 105 et seq. ; 
enamoured of Louise de Kerou- 
alle, 108 et seq. ; and the death 
of Madame, no et seq.; sends 
Buckingham to Versailles, 114, 
115 ; invites Louise de Kerou- 
alle to England, 115 et seq. ; 
creates Lady Castlemaine 
Duchess of Cleveland, 118; 
baffled by the affected coyness 
of Mile, de Keroualle, 119; 
" shows her a warm affection," 
121 ; "indulges in a gay and 
unfettered debauch," with the 
French Ambassador, 122 ; his 
visit to Euston Hall, 123 et seq. ; 
triumphs over the pretended 
scruples of Louise de Keroualle, 
126, 127 ; has a son by her, 
127 ; declares war against Hol- 
land, 128 ; compelled to give 
his assent to the Test Act, 129, 
130; seeks to postpone his 
profession of Catholicism sine 
die, 1 30 ; reported to be con- 
templating marriage with Louise 
de Keroualle, in the event of 
becoming a widower, 133, 134 ; 
refuses to acknowledge a 
daughter of the Duchess of 
Cleveland, 1 34 ; surprises that 
lady with John Churchill, after- 
wards Duke of Marlborough, 
135 ; his kindness to Wycherley, 
the dramatist, 139; "goes but 
seldom to Cleveland House," 
140 ; his affection for his 
daughters, the Ladies Anne and 
Charlotte Fitzroy, 140 and note, 
141 ; recognizes two great failings 
in his brother, the Duke of York, 
145 ; creates Louise de Kerou- 
alle Duchess of Portsmouth, 147, 
148 ; and obtains for her the 
donation of the estate of Aubigny 



Charles II. — continued. 

from Louis XIV., 149 et seq. ; 
frankly criticized in House of 
Commons, 153 ; prorogues Par- 
liament, 153; his shameful 
duplicity in regard to his treaties 
with Louis XIV., 156, 157; 
sacrifices Buckingham to the 
resentment of the Commons, 
158 ; makes a separate peace 
with Holland, ibid ; enforced 
separation between him and the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, 160 ; 
reproached for his infidelities by 
her, 161 ; gives her sister Hen- 
riette de Keroualle a pension, 
161 ; and provides her with a 
dowry, 161 ; his misplaced len- 
iency towards the Earl of Pem- 
broke, 163 ; creates his son by 
the Duchess of Portsmouth. 
Duke of Richmond, 165 ; and 
Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, 

166 ; settles pensions of £10,000 
a year each upon the Duchesses 
of Cleveland and Portsmouth, 

167 ; entertained by Nell Gwyn 
in Pall Mall, 169 ; amused by 
Nell's full-flavoured jests, 170 ; 
his proposal for the hand of 
Hortense Mancini in 1659 re- 
jected by Mazarin, 179 ; de- 
clines the lady's hand after the 
Restoration, 180 ; sends her his 
compliments on her arrival in 
England, 190 ; less attentive to 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, 193 ; 
intercedes with Louis XIV. on 
behalf of Madame de Mazarin, 
194 ; reported to have " a 
certain and very secret under- 
standing with Madame de 
Mazarin," 196 ; does not deny 
that he has " much affection for 
her," 199 ; said to be no longer 
on tender terms with the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, 203 ; his secret 
rendezvous with Madame de 
Mazarin, 205, 206 ; continues to 
visit the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
207 ; at pains to conceal his 
meetings with Madame de Maz- 
arin, 210 ; creates his elder sou 
by Nell Gwyn Earl of Burford, 
211 ; closeted with Madame de 
Mazarin for four hours, 216 ; his 
financial position growing des- 



3 6 4 



INDEX 



Charles II. — continued. 

perate, 217 ; in receipt of a 
quarterly " salary " from Louis 
XIV., 217, 218 ; obliged to 
summon Parliament, 218 ; treats 
the Commons with a high hand, 
220, 221 ; a sharp practitioner 
in money matters, 225, 226 ; 
and the marriage of the Princess 
Mary to William of Orange, 226 
et seq. ; makes a treaty with 
Holland, 230 ; and the Duchess 
of Portsmouth's illness, 231 ; 
demands supplies for war from 
the Commons, 234 ; in a pitiable 
state of uncertainty, 237 ; makes 
a private treaty with Louis XIV., 
237 ; declines to ratify it, 238 ; 
and the Montagu-Cleveland 
affair, 239 et seq. ; and the im- 
peachment of Danby, 244 et 
seq., 258 ; and the Popish Plot, 
252 et seq., 278, 289, 290; per- 
suades the Duke of York to 
retire to Brussels, 259 ; and the 
question of the Succession, 259, 

260 ; his secret interview with 
Barrillon, 260 ; demands finan- 
cial assistance from Louis XIV., 

261 ; disgusted at the parsi- 
monious offers of that monarch, 

262 ; and the Exclusion Bill, 

263 et seq. ; falls seriously ill, 
but recovers, 266, 267 ; continues 
his secret negotiations with 
France, 267, 268 ; disgraces the 
Duke of Monmouth, 271 ; pro- 
rogues Parliament, 273 ; pub- 
lishes the declaration denying 
that he was ever married to any 
other woman than the Queen, 
274 ; refuses to dismiss Halifax 
at the bidding of the Commons, 
279 ; outrageous insolence of 
Shaftesbury towards, 281 ; dis- 
solves Parliament, 282 ; dismisses 
the leading Exclusionists from 
the Council, 283 ; summons 
the new Parliament to meet at 
Oxford, 283 ; makes a new 
secret treaty with Louis XIV., 
284, 285 ; his enthusiastic wel- 
come at Oxford, 286, 287 ; his 
speech at the opening of Parlia- 
ment, 288 ; his conversation 
with Shaftesbury, 289, 290 ; 
resolved to make short work of 



Charles II. — continued. 

the Commons, 291 ; and dissolves 
the new Parliament, 291 et seq. ; 
triumphant vindication of his 
bold action, 294, 295 ; causes 
Shaftesbury to be arrested and 
prosecuted, 295 ; enjoys a well- 
earned holiday at Newmarket, 
296 et seq. ; and the Oxford 
deputation, 298, 299 ; scan- 
dalizes Alderman Wright, 299, 
300 ; provides for the Duchess 
of Portsmouth's future, 301, 302 ; 
no longer enamoured of Madame 
de Mazarin, 304 ; withdraws her 
pension, owing to her liaison 
with the Prince of Monaco, 305 ; 
but soon restores it, 305 ; never 
takes any receipts, 305 note ; 
reconciles the Duke of York to 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, 307 ; 
compels the Dutch Ambassador 
to apologize to the favourite, 
307 ; and the Rye House Plot, 
309, 310 ; his triumph over the 
Country party complete, 310 ; 
does not summon a new Parlia- 
ment, 310, 311 ; jealous of the 
attentions of the Grand Prieur de 
Vendome to the Duchess of 
Portsmouth, 314 et seq. ; more 
the slave of the favourite than 
ever, 319 ; persuades Louis XIV. 
to erect the Aubigny estates 
into a duchy for her, 319, 320; 
suspends all Court functions 
during her illness in 1684, 320 ; 
decides to build a palace at 
Winchester, 321 ; makes Ken 
Bishop of Winchester, 321, 322 ; 
and the erection of Chelsea Hos- 
pital, 322 et seq. ; said to have 
intended to bestow a peerage 
upon Nell Gwyn, 329 and note ; 
his failing health, 330 ; his last 
illness and death, 330 et seq. 

Charles VII. of France, 149. 

Charles IV. of Lorraine, 185, 
186. 

Charles II. of Spain, 96. 

Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, Duke, 
116, 189. 

Chastillon, Chevalier de, 240. 

Chateauroux, Duchesse de, 358. 

Chaworth, Lady, 209. 

Chelsea Hospital, 322. 

Chesterfield, Earl of, 1 1 et seq. 



INDEX 



365 



Chesterton, Mr. Cecil, 32 note, 44, 
323. 346. 

Chevreuse, Duchesse de, 305. 

Chiffinch, William, 216 note, 334-5, 
338. 

Cholmley, Sir H., 10. 

Churchill, Arabella, 130. 

Cibber, Colley, 169, 347. 

Clare, Earl of, 49. 

Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 
10, 14-15. 17. 24-5. 27-8, 31, 69, 
75, 96, 249, 253, (cited) 14, 75- 

Clarke J. S., 276, 338-9. 

Clayton, Sir Richard, 342. 

Clement VI., 187. 

Cleveland, Barbara, Duchess of 
(Countess of Castlemaine), 56, 
no, 209, 331 ; her infidelities, 
3, 20-1, 60-7, 305 ; her parent- 
age, 10 ; her beauty, 10 ; her 
marriage, 1 1 ; her liaison with 
the Earl of Chesterfield, 11-12 ; 
becomes mistress of the King, 

12 et seq. ; birth of her first 
child (Anne, Countess of Sussex), 

13 ; birth of her second child 
(Charles, Duke of Southampton), 
13-14 ; forces her presence upon 
the Queen, 14-15, 76, 214 ; 
Pepys on, 1 5 et seq. ; official 
lodgings assigned to, 17 ; her 
hostility to Clarendon, 17, 27-28 ; 
and her new rival, Frances 
Stuart, 17 et seq. ; birth of her 
second son (Henry, Duke of 
Grafton), 20 ; joins the Church 
of Rome, 20 ; publicly rebuked 
in St. James's Park, 20-21 ; 
birth of another son (George, 
Duke of Northumberland), 21 ; 
her rapacity and extravagance, 
21-2, 28, 118, 167, 170; attends 
the Duke's Theatre, 38 ; her 
jealousy of Moll Davis, 60 ; 
Louis XIV. wishes to make use 
of, 97-8 ; Duke of Bucking- 
ham's hostility to, 115, 117; 
created Duchess of Cleveland, 
118 ; her influence on the King 
diminishes, 119, 168; and her 
new rival, Louise de Keroualle, 
T 33> x 59: another daughter 
born to, 1 34 ; her intrigue with 
John Churchill, 134 et seq. ; 
and the precedence of her son, 
Henry Fitzroy, 166-7 ; g° es to 
France, 205 ; titles bestowed 



Cleveland, Barbara, Duchess 
of — continued. 
on the children of, 211, 329 ; her 
intrigues with Montagu and the 
Chevalier de Chastillon, 239 
et seq. ; and the Countess of 
Sussex, 241-2. 

Clifford, Thomas, Lord, 96, 106. 

Cole, Rev. William, 327 note. 

Coleman, 246, 253 and note. 

Colonna, Constable, 188. 

Colonna, Marie, Constabless, 177 
note, 186, 188-9. 

Cominges M., 21 note, 23. 

Compton, Henry, Bishop of Lon- 
don, 227 and note. 

Conde, Louis de Bourbon, Prince 
de (The Great Conde), 148-9. 

Congreve, William, 32 note, 137. 

Conway, Lady, 308. 

Conway, Lord, 297, 299. 

Cook, Mr. Dutton, 64. 

Cooqus, John, 170-1. 

Corey, Mrs. 34. 

Cornbury, Lord, 24. 

Couberville, 185 et seq. 

Council of Thirty, 259. 

Courcelles, Marquise de, 184 and 
note, 191, 231-7. 

Courtin, Honore, his appearance 
and character, 197 ; takes up 
his appointment of French 
Ambassador, 197-8 ; acts as 
intermediary between the Due 
and Duchesse de Mazarin, 198 
et seq. ; fears the influence of the 
Duchesse de Mazarin on Charles 
II., 199, 200 ; and the Duchess 
of Portsmouth's waning in- 
fluence, 203 et seq., 207, 210; 
pays court to Madame de Maz- 
arin, 206-7 : his admiration of 
Mrs. Middleton, 207-8, 214; 
and the favourites of King 
Charles, 212-13 > describes the 
splendour of the Duchesse de 
Mazarin, 215-16; bribes the 
legislators, 218-19 ; and the 
success of the French arms, 220, 
222 ; replaced by Barrillon, 
223-4 ; intercedes with Louis 
XIV. on behalf of the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, 351. 

Coventry, Sir John, 91 et seq. 

Coventry, Sir William, 91-2 note, 
251. 

Cowley, Abraham, ^6. 



3 66 



INDEX 



Croissy, Colbert de, 27, 97 et seq., 
106, 125, 150, 156, 160, (cited) 
72, 99, 1 12-13, ll 9 ei sea -- I2 5 
et seq., 130 et seq., 143 ei 5e^., 150. 

Cromwell, Oliver, 8, 9, 30, 248. 

Crowne, John, his play, Sir Courtly 
Nice, 72. 

Cunningham, Peter, 39, 41 note, 
44, 58, 63 note, 171, 211, 271 
wote, 322-3, 327 note. 

Curll, Edmund, 44, 136 note. 



Danby, Earl of (Lord Treasurer), 
219 ; alliance between Duchess 
of Portsmouth and, 166-7, 2 33 ; 
his anti-French policy, 200, 230 ; 
and the marriage of William of 
Orange and Princess Mary, 227, 
229, 239, 261 ; Shaftesbury fac- 
tions hatred of, 234 ; and the 
secret compact between Louis 
XIV. and Charles II. ,237; accused 
by Montagu before the Commons, 
243 ; publication of the letters 
relating to the secret treaty, 
244-5 ; indignation of the House 
against, 246, 258, 263, 279 ; 
committed to the Tower for five 
years, 259, 273. 

Dangeau, Marquis de, 164, 352. 

Dangerfield, 256. 

Dartmouth, Lord, 13. 

Davenant, Sir William, 31, 33, 36, 
50 ; his plays, The Cruelty of the 
Spaniards, 30 ; The Siege of 
Rhodes, 35 ; his version of 
Fletcher's play, The Two Noble 
Kinsmen, 58. 

Davenport, Mrs., 35, 37. 

Davis, Mary (Moll), 35 et seq., 56, 
58 et seq., 65, 133-4- 

Dennis John, (cited) 137 et seq., 139, 
140 note. 

Derwentwater, Francis Radcliffe, 
second Earl of, 68 note. 

De Witt, Jan, 94. 

Domestick Intelligencer, The, 296. 

Dorset, Charles Sackville, sixth Earl 
of, 43, 45, 51 et seq., 64, 169, 328, 
355- 

Dorset, Frances, Countess of, 51. 

Dorset, Mary Bagot, Countess of, 
131- 



Dorset, Richard Sackville, fifth 
Earl of, 51. 

Dover, Treaty of , 106 et seq., 11 3-14, 
157, 238, 249, 254. 

Downes, 66. 

Dryden, John, 36, 38 et seq., 53, 
69, 71, 137, 248, 342-3; his 
plays, Indian Emperor, 46 ; 
Tyrannick Love, 47, 64 ; Secret 
Love, 47 et seq., 72 ; King Arthur, 
76 ; The Conquest of Granada, 
65, 87 ; An Enemy's Love, 64. 

Duncan (or Dungan), Robert, 44. 

D'Urfey, Thomas, 37 note. 

Dyer, Daniel, 346. 



Edward IV., 20. 

Elboeuf, Demoiselles d', 144 et seq., 

150. 
Elboeuf, Due d', 144. 
Elboeuf, Duchesse d', 146. 
Elizabeth, Queen, 54. 
Elliot, Tom, 84-5. 
Ellis, John, 299. 
Epsom, 54 et seq. ; Nell Gwyn's 

house at, 55. 
Essex, Earl of, 168, 259, 264 et seq., 

274, 277, 283, 309.' 
Estrades, Comte d', 152. 
Estrees, Gabrielle d', 3. 
Etherege, Sir George, 36, 324, 347 ; 

his play, Lady of Pleasure, 40, 44. 
Evelyn, John, 7, 24 note, 69, 70, 

72, 103 note, (cited) 83-9, 108, 

119, 124 et seq., 168, 313 et seq., 

323, 331, 342-3, 347. 
Exclusion Bill, 277 et seq., 283 et 

seq., 307. 



Fairborne, Sir Palmer and Lady, 

345- 
Ferrers, Captain, 20. 
Feversham, Earl of, 44, 153, 267, 

338. 
Finch, George, Lord Chancellor, 

292-3. 
Firth, Professor, (cited) 230. 
Fitzroy, Ladies Anne and Charlotte 

(natural daughters of Charles II. 

and Duchess of Cleveland). See 

Sussex and Lichfield. 



INDEX 



367 



Forneron, M. Henri, (cited) 99, roi. 
103, 104 note, 123 note, 127, 146, 
199, 225, 235-6, 253, 256, 275, 

303. 315. 351- 
Fox, Sir Stephen, 323, 342, 347. 
Frampton, Dr., 74. 
Frazer, Dr., 133. 
Funck-Brenttauo, M. 111 note. 



Garrick, David, 40. 

George I., 32, 353. 

George, Prince of Denmark, 312. 

Gendre, Dr. Paul le, 1 1 1 note. 

Gentleman's Magazine, 64. 

Godfrey, Mrs. 135. 

Godfrey, Sir Edmondbury, 246-7. 

Godfrey, Sir Edward B., 104 note. 

Grace, Hannah, 346. 

Grafton (natural son of Charles II. 
and Duchess of Cleveland), Henry 
Fitzroy, Duke of, 20, 123, 140-1, 
166, 326. 

Gramont, Comte de, 114, 154, 191, 
208 note. 

Grandison, Lady, 10. 

Grandison, William Villiers, Vis- 
count, 10. 

Green, J. R., 249 note. 

Green, Lady, 328. 

Green, Sir Edward, 328 note. 

Grey, Lord, 294, 309. 

Guildford, Lord, 77. 

Guise de. See Orleans. 

Gwinn, Mrs. Helena (mother of 
Nell Gwyn), 41, 324. 

Gwyn, Nell, sits next to Pepys 
at the Duke's Theatre, 38 ; 
pleases him in The English Mon- 
sieur, 38 ; "a mighty pretty 
soul," 39 ; uncertainty as to her 
birthplace, 40 ; and paternity, 
40, 41 ; her mother, 41 ; her 
sister, Rose Gwyn, 42, 344 ; 
her early years, 42, 43 ; becomes 
an orange-girl at the King's 
Theatre, Drury Lane, 43 ; and 
Robert Duncan, or Dongan, 
44 ; trained for the stage by 
the actor, Charles Hart, 44, 45 ; 
a born comedienne, 46 ; a dismal 
failure in tragedy, 46, 47 ; her 
triumph as Florimel in Dryden's 
Secret Love, or The Maiden 
Queen, 47 tt seq. ; her lodging 



Gwyn, Nell — continued. 

in Drury Lane, 49 ; admired by 
Pepys " in her smock sleeves and 
bodice," 49 ; " mighty pretty " 
in boy's clothes, 50 ; becomes 
the mistress of Lord Buckhurst, 
51 ; goes to stay with him at 
Epsom, 55, 56 ; discarded by 
Buckhurst, 56 ; her humiliating 
position, 57 ; " curses prettily," 
58 ; her success as Mirida in 
All Mistaken, 61 et seq. ; ru- 
mours concerning her and 
Charles II., 63 et seq. ; her 
success as Almahide in The 
Conquest of Granada, 66 ; bears 
the King a son, 66 ; explanation 
of Charles II. 's lasting attach- 
ment to her, 68 et seq. ; retires 
from the stage, 87 ; goes to live 
in Pall Mall, 87, 88 ; her sup- 
posed association with various 
houses, 88, 89 ; given Burford 
House, Windsor, 89, 90 ; bears 
Charles another son, 134; as 
high in favour as ever, 169 ; 
holds high revel in Pall Mall, 
169 ; sums which she receives, 
170; her bedstead, 170, 171; 
immensely popular with the 
people, 172 ; her generosity, 

172 ; does not pretend to be 
anything but what she is, 172, 

173 ; her quarrels with the 
Duchess of Portsmouth, 173 et 
seq. ; receiving more of the King's 
attentions than the duchess, 
207 ; indulges in biting witti- 
cisms at the expense of her 
rival, 211 ; her elder son created 
Earl of Burford, 211; "in a 
very sprightly humour," 213 ; 
intercedes with Charles II. on 
behalf of the Duke of Mon- 
mouth, 271 ; makes game of Mon- 
mouth's pretensions, 272 ; called 
by the London mob " Protestant 
Nell," 273 ; mistaken at Oxford 
for the Duchess of Portsmouth, 
287, 288 ; at Newmarket, 297, 
298 ; scandalizes Alderman 
Wright, of Oxford, 299, 300 ; re- 
fused hospitality by Bishop 
Ken, 321, 322 ; and the founda- 
tion of Chelsea Hospital, 322 
et seq. ; loses her mother, 324 ; 
and her second son, 324 ; her 



368 



INDEX 



Gwyn, Nell — continued. 

letters, 325 et seq. ; report that 
Charles II. intended to confer 
a peerage upon her, 329 ; the 
King's dying recommendation 
concerning her, 340 ; in financial 
straits, 341 ; assisted by James 
II., 342 ; rumoured to be about 
to join the Church of Rome, 
342, 343 ; has an attack of 
apoplexy, 343 ; her death, 344 ; 
her will, 344 et seq. ; " dies 
piously and penitently," 347 ; 
buried at St. Martin's-in-the- 
Fields, 347 ; her funeral sermon 
preached by Dr. Tenison, 347, 
348. 

Gwyn, Rose (sister to Nell Gwyn), 
42, 345- 



Hopital, Marechal de 1', 149. 
Hore, Mr. J. P., 78, (cited) 78 '''et 

seq., 297-8. 
Howard, Colonel Charles. See 

Earl of Berkshire. 
Howard, Edward, 60. 
Howard, James, his play, All 

Mistaken, or the Mad Couple, 67. 
Howard, Sir Philip, 39 note. 
Howard, Mr. Robert, 334. 
Howard, Sir Robert, 35-6, 60; his 

plays, The English Monsieur, 

38, 47 ; Surprisal, 46, 56 ; The 

Duke of Lerma, 47, 64. 
Howard, Colonel Thomas, 7-8. 
Howard of Ettrick, Lord, 309. 
Huddlestone, John, 338-9. 
Hughes, Peg, 34, 341. 
Hyde, Lawrence. See Earl or 

Rochester. 



il 



Halifax, George Savile, Marquis 

of, 2, 69, 70, 76-7, 135, 211, 

261 et seq., 269, 277, 288 et seq., 

301, 311, 328. 
Hall, Jacob, 67 note. 
Hall, Mrs., 39. 
Hall, Timothy, 234. 
Hamilton, Anthony, Count, 19, 

44. 
Hamilton, James Douglas, Duke of, 

136-7. 
Hampden Richard, 275 note, 309. 
Hampton Court, 13 et seq., 21. 
Hanson, Millicent, 256. 
Harbord, Mr., 269. 
Harbord, Will, 153 note. 
Haro, Don Luis de, 179. 
Harris, Henry, 328. 
Harris, Joseph, 35. 
Hart, Charles, 34, 44-5, 48, 56, 

60 et seq. 
Harvey, Lady, 212 note, 214-15, 

232-3. 
Hatton, Lord, 140. 
Henri IV., King of France, 2. 
Henrietta Maria (Queen of Charles 

I.), 4, 9, 19, 109, 180, 
Hetherington, John, 346. 
Hill, Ann, 8. 
Holland, 94 et seq., 128 et seq., 

261-2. 
Hollyman, Lady, 346. 
Home, Mr. Gordon, 54 note, (cited) 

55 note. 



Inchequin, Lord, 91 note. 
Innocent XL, 244. 
Ireland, Dr. John, 39. 
Isham, Thomas, (cited) 85. 



James I. of Scotland, 71. 

James IL, 10, 99, 218, 240, 246; 
and the Pope, 5 ; his love of the 
theatre, 31, 48 ; and King 
Charles's banter, 79 ; his con- 
version to the Roman Catholic 
religion, 96, 130, 250; welcomes 
the Duchesse d'Orleans to Eng- 
land, 105-6 ; his second mar- 
riage to Mary of Modena, 128, 
130 et seq., 144 et seq. ; his mis- 
tresses, 132, 208 note ; and the 
conversion of Charles II. , 143 ; 
attends Nell Gwyn's supper- 
parties, 169 ; receives the 
Duchesse de Mazarin, 191 ; mar- 
riage of his daughter, Princess 
Mary, to William of Orange, 
226 et seq. ; his right of succes- 
sion to the Throne attacked, 
250 et seq., 259, 264 et seq., 272 
et seq., 281 ; Halifax's com- 
promise concerning, 288-9 ; an( * 
the Duchess of Portsmouth, 300, 
367 ; exiled to Scotland, 301 ; 
and the Rye House Plot, 309. 



INDEX 



369 



James V. of Scotland, 71. 

Jeffreys, Judge, 310. 

Jenkins, Sir Leoline, 297. 

Jermyn, Harry, 20-1. 

Jersey, Earl of, 348. 

John III., King of Poland, 148. 

Johnson, 27. 

Johnson, Dr., 52-3 and note. 

Johnson, Mrs., 36. 

Jones, Inigo, 33 note. 

Jonson, Ben, 32 note, 36 ; his plays, 

Silent Woman, 33 ; Bartholomew 

Fair, 34. 
Jusserand, M., {cited) 20-1. 
Justel, 355. 



K 



Kate " Oxford," 52. 

Ken, Bishop, 74, 321-2, 336* 

Kensington Palace, 27. 

Keroualle, Henriette de. See Pem- 
broke. 

Keroualle, Louise de. See Ports- 
mouth. 

Keroualle, Sebastian de, 104. 

Kildare, Lord, 326. 

Killigrew, Harry, 10, 52. 

Killigrew, Thomas, 10, 30-1, 36. 

King, Dr., 334-5. 

Kit-Kat Club, 211. 

Kneller, Godfrey, 212. 

Knight, Mrs., 68, 328. 

Knipp, 35, 37 et seq., $7. 63. 

Kynaston, 33-4, 92 note. 



Lacy, John, 34, 44. 

La Fontaine, Jean de, 225. 

Lake, Dr Edward, 227 (cited), 

229. 
Lauderdale, Countess of, 170, 

218. 
Lauderdale, Earl of, 75, 76, 81, 

107, 157, 170, 218, 253. 
Lauraguais, Duchesse de, 358. 
Leigh, Mr., 335. 
Lely, Sir Peter, 9, 17, 27, 53, 341 

note. 
Leque, Dr., 111. 
Lesdiguieres, Due de, 104. 
Lichfield, Charlotte, Countess of, 

141 and note, 312. 



Lichfield, Edward, Earl of, 141. 

Lionne, Hugues de, 99 et seq., Ill, 
144. 

Littleton, Sir Thomas, 153 note. 

London, 12 ; Somerset House, 8, 
19, 26 ; Tower of, 8, 68, 259, 
266; Lincoln's Inn Fields, 11, 
87, 311 ; St. Mary's, West- 
minster, 14 ; Whitehall, 15, 
17-18, 23, 28, 30, 60, 84 et seq., 
no, 113, 119, 121, 130, 142, 
146, 168, 173, 191-2, 196-7, 201, 
223, 256, 258, 260, 271, 294, 297, 
306, 312-13, 331, 351 ; Covent 
Garden, 17, 52 ; St. James's 
Park, 19, 20, 74, 81, 88, 137, 210, 
330; Westminster, 49, 73 ; West- 
minster Abbey, 27 ; Westminster 
Hall, 275, 283 ; Drury Lane, 
29 et seq., 49, 56 et seq., 64, 139 ; 
Holland House, 30 ; Pall Mall, 
44, 87-8, 91 note, 137, 175. 324; 
Nell Gwyn's residences in, 42-3, 
49, 87 et seq.; Newgate, 51 ; 
Cock Tavern, Bow Street, 52 ; 
Smithneld, 67 note ; Guildhall, 
78 ; Hyde Park, 79 ; St. James's 
Palace, 88, 201, 354; London 
Bridge, 198. 

Long, Mrs., 35. 

Longueville, Duchesse de, 148. 

Lorraine, Chevalier de, in note, 

"3- 

Louis XIII., 131 note. 

Louis XIV. and Frances Stuart, 
17-18 ; and Duchess of Cleve- 
land, 27, 91 ; his ambitions to 
conquer Europe, 94 et seq., 152 ; 
his negotiations with Charles II., 
95 et seq., 102 ; sends Pregnani 
to influence Charles II., 98 et 
seq. ; failure of his schemes, 
101-2 ; Duchesse d'Orleans visits 
Charles at request of, 102, 106 
et seq. ; and Treaty of Dover, 
106 et seq., 157, 238; financial 
negotiations with Charles, 106 
et seq., 158, 199, 200, 217 et seq., 
222 et seq., 230, 237, 239, 264-5, 
253, 291 ; and the death of 
Duchesse d'Orleans, 109 et seq. ; 
persuades Mile, de Keroualle to 
go to England for diplomatic 
reasons, 116, 120 et seq., 213, 
233 ; his pleasure at Mile, de 
Keroualle becoming the mistress 
of Charles, 127-8, 303 ; his 

24 



37o 



INDEX 



Louis XIV. — continued. 

schemes, 128 ; invades Holland, 
129, 152 ; and Roman Catholi- 
cism in England, 130, 143, 254-5 ; 
and Duke of York's marriage, 
130 et seq., 144 et seq., 152 ; and 
Mile, de Keroualle's demands 
for the estate of Aubigny, 150-1, 
164-5, 3 J 9> 3 2 o; his secret 
alliance with Buckingham, 154 
et seq. ; his marriage with the 
Infanta Theresa, 179 ; and Due 
de Mazarin, 18 1-2 ; and the 
matrimonial affairs of the Due 
and Duchesse de Mazarin, 188, 
190 ; asked by Charles II. to 
increase the pension of the 
Duchesse, 194, 196, 198, 305 ; 
refuses Charles II. 's request, 
195, 207 ; fears the influence of 
the Duchesse de Mazarin on 
Charles II., 199-200 ; disturbed 
by the Duchess of Portsmouth's 
declining influence, 204-5, 2I 3 ; 
his fresh triumphs, 220 ; recalls 
Courtin and appoints Barrillon as 
Ambassador to England, 223 
et seq. ; and marriage of William 
of Orange to Princess Mary of 
York, 226 et seq. ; terms of 
peace with Charles, 237 et seq. ; 
243 et seq. ; and the " Popish 
Plot," 246 ; attempts to bribe 
Shaftesbury, 249 ; more negotia- 
tions with King Charles, 260 et 
seq., 267 et seq., 311; his wholesale 
bribery, 275-6, 284 ; his pro- 
posals to Charles, 284-5 ; his 
reception of the Duchess of 
Portsmouth, 306-7 ; and the 
marriage of Princess Anne, 312 ; 
and Philippe de Vendome, 314 
et seq. ; James II. 's subservience 
to, 349 et seq. ; treatment of 
the Duchess of Portsmouth after 
the death of King Charles, 351 
et seq. 

Louis XV., 2, 358. 

Louvois, 105, 144, 351 ; Colbert 
de Croissy's letters to, 119 et seq., 
125 ; Comte d'Estrades to, 152 ; 
Honore Courtin to, 198, 202, 
209, 215, 222 (cited), 123, 131, 
204. 

Luttrell, Narcissus, (cited) 343. 

Lyttleton, Sir Charles, (cited) 
134- 



M 



Macaulay, Lord, 335. 

Mailly, Comtesse de, 358. 

Maintenon, Madame de, 119, 351. 

Mancini, Cardinal, 187. 

Mancini, Laura, 314. 

March, Earl of, 352. 

Marie, Queen of Poland, 148. 

Marie Theresa, Queen of Loui* 
XIV., 179. 

Marshall, Rebecca, 34, 38, 43, 
50. 

Marshall, Stephen, 43. 

Marsillac, Princesse de, 148-9. 

Marvell, Andrew, 216. 

Mary, Queen, 137, 265, 348. 

Mary of Modena, Queen of James I., 
147, 148-9, 152, 195, 205, 276, 
356. 

Mary II., Queen, 226 et seq. 

Massall, 256. 

Masson, David, (cited) 24-5. 

Mazarin, Armand, Due de, 181 
et seq., 201, 303, 355. 

Mazarin, Cardinal, 144, 177 et seq. 

Mazarin, Hortense Mancini, 

Duchesse de, 263, 314; her 
beauty, 177-8, 191 et seq., 207 ; 
her marriage to the Due de 
Mazarin, 181 ; her unhappy 
married life, 181 et seq. ; leaves 
her husband, 184 ; flees from 
France to Italy, 185 ; her in- 
trigue with Couberville, 186-7 ; 
attempts to reconcile herself to 
the Due, 187-8 ; again goes to 
Italy, 188 ; her flight to France 
with her sister Marie, 188-9 ; 
welcomed by Charles of Savoy, 
189, 190; arrives in London, 
19 1-2 ; seeks the advice of 
Charles on her monetary affairs, 
194 et seq., 305 ; secret un- 
derstanding with King Charles, 
196, 199 et seq., 205 et seq., 209, 
216-17, 331 ; visited by Nell 
Gwyn and the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, 212-13 ; formally recon- 
ciled with the Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, 213 et seq. ; her magnifi- 
cence, 215 ; denounced by Titus 
Oates, 252 ; falls in love with the 
Prince of Monaco, 304-5 ; loses 
her ascendency over King 
Charles, 305 ; her life in her 
later years, 354 et seq. 



INDEX 



37i 



Mazarin, Marie Anne de (Abbess 
of Lys), 358. 

Mazarin, Paul Jules, Due de, 
358. 

Mercoeur, Laura, Duchesse de, 77 
note. 

Mohun, Michael, 34. 

Moliere, 37 note. 

Molina, Conde de, 119. 

Monaco, Prince of, 304, 354. 

Monmouth, James, Duke of (natural 
son of Charles II. and Lucy 
Walter), 5, 6, 8, 9, 92, 98 et seq., 
106, 264 et seq., 289, 290, 309, 
347 note. 

Montagu, Ralph, 208 note, 212 
note ; British Ambassador in 
Paris, 237, 253 note ; his affaire 
with the Ducness of Cleveland, 
239 et seq. ; denounced, through 
a misunderstanding, by the 
duchess, 241-2 ; plans the fall 
of Danby, 243 et seq. ; produces 
incriminating letters, 244-5 '• 
bribed by the French Govern- 
ment, 275 note ; and the Ex- 
clusion Bill, 277-8 ; his infatua- 
tion for the Duchesse de Mazarin, 
304- 

Montagu, Robert, 112, 1 16-17. 

Montpensier, Mile, de, 179, 180. 

Moray, Robert, 72. 

Morocco, Sultan of, 318. 

Mountstevens, Mr., 270 note. 

Musters, Sir John, 342. 

Myddleton, Jane, 208 note, 214, 
232 and note, 233. 

Myddleton, Miss, 232 and note. 



N 



Nantes, Edict of, 156. 

Nesle, Marquis and Marquise de, 

358. 
Nevers, Due de, 185 et seq. 
Newcastle, William, Earl of, 82-3. 
Newmarket, 82 et seq., 99, 100, 125, 

J 93. 2 56, 267, 295 et seq., 309, 

321. 
Nicholas, Sir Edward, 17. 
Nokes, James, 35. 
Norfolk, Duchess of, 326. 
North, Roger, 69. 
Northumberland, George Fitzroy, 

Duke of, 2i, 141. 



Oates, Titus, 246, 251, 254 et seq., 

294. 
Ogle, Sir Thomas, 52. 
Oldys, William, 44. 
Oliva, General of the Jesuits, 96. 
O'Neale, Daniel, 8. 
" Orange Moll," 37, 56. 
Orleans, Charlotte "Elizabeth d', 

in note, 112. 
Orleans, Elizabeth d' (Duchesse de 

Guise), 1 3 1-2, 144 et seq. 
Orleans, Henriette, Duchesse d', 

18, 25-6, 75, 101 et seq., 144. 
Orleans, Philippe d' (brother of 

Louis XIV.), in note, 112, 114, 

180. 
Orleans, Philippe d' (the Regent), 

3. 3i8. 
Ormond, James Butler, Duke of, 

107. 
Orrery, Earl of, 53 note ; his plays, 

Mustapha, 35 et seq. ; Black 

Prince, 63 note. 
Osborne, Thomas, Earl of Danby 

and Duke of Leeds. See Danby. 
Ossory, Lady, 123. 
Otway, Thomas, his play, Friend- 
ship in Fashion, 87. 
Owen, John, 55. 

Oxford, 21, 283 et seq., 298 et seq. 
Oxford, Aubrey de Vere, Earl of, 

14, 35, 205. 



Palatine, Princess, m, 305. 
Palmer, Barbara. See Duchess of 

Cleveland. 
Palmer, Sir James, 11. 
Palmer, Roger. See Castlemaine. 
Paris, Archbishop of. See Chan- 

vallon. 
Patrick, Father, 130. 
Pedro II. of Portugal, 178-9. 
Pembroke, Countess of, 161 el seq., 

306. 
Pembroke, Thomas, Earl of, 344. 
Penancoet, Guillaume de (father 

of Louise de Keroualle), 103, 

109. 
Penn, William, 78. 
Pennant, Thomas, 87. 
Pentroet, Francois de, 102-} 



372 



INDEX 



Pepys, Samuel, 35, (cited) 10, 13, 
1$ et seq., 22 note, 24 note, 26, 
32-3. 35-6 note, 37 et seq., 43. 
46 et seq., 60, 63-4, 67, 208 
note. 

Pepys, Mrs., 35 note, 48. 

Peterborough, Earl of, 136 note. 

" Petitioners," 274. 

Petre, Lord, 251. 

Pett, Ph., (cited) 55. 

Philip II. of Spain, 225. 

Philip V. of Spain, 152. 

Pierce, Mr., 18, 26, 43, 51. 

Plessis, Comtesse de, 204. 

Plymouth, Charles, Earl of, 328. 

Pomponne, Arnauld de, 144, 147, 
\$onote, 155, 156, 160, 177, 191, 
193, 219, 223 note, 224, 231. 

Pope, Alexander, 54, 1 36 note. 

Pordage, Samuel, his play, Siege 
of Babylon, 87. 

Portsmouth, Louise de Kerou- 
alle, Duchess of, accompanies 
Madame to England, 102 ; her 
parentage, 102, 103 and note ; 
romantic adventures attributed 
to her, 103, 104 ; and the Comte 
de Sault, 104, 105 ; said to 
have cherished designs upon 
Louis XIV., 105 ; captivates 
Charles II., 107 ; not permitted 
by Madame to remain in England, 
109 ; offered the post of maid- 
of-honour to Catherine of Bra- 
ganza, 116 ; persuaded by Louis 
XIV. to accept it, 116; her 
journey to England, 117, 118; 
in no hurry to surrender to 
Charles II., 118, 119; her 
affected coyness misunderstood 
at Versailles, 119 et seq. ; atten- 
tions paid her by the King, 121 ; 
conspiracy to overcome her pre- 
tended scruples, 122 et seq. ; 
her visit to Euston Hall, 124 
et seq. ; becomes the King's 
mistress, 126, 127 ; begins to 
use her influence to the profit 
of France, 128 ; fails to persuade 
Charles to profess the Roman 
Catholic faith, 130; aspires to 
become Queen of England, 133, 
1 34 ; employs her political in- 
fluence with tact and moderation, 
143 ; holds different views from 
the French Government on the 
question of the Duke of York's 



Portsmouth, Louise de Kerou- 
alle, Duchess of — continued. 
marriage, 144 et seq. ; becomes 
a naturalized British subject, 
147 ; created Duchess of Ports- 
mouth, 148 ; aspires to become 
a French duchess, 148, 149 ; re- 
ceives the estate of Aubigny, 
in Berry, from Louis XIV., 150, 
151 ; persuades Charles to 
abandon Buckingham to the 
enmity of the Commons, 158 ; 
confers a kind of dignity upon 
the post of King's mistress, 159 ; 
enforced separation between her 
and the King, 160 ; goes to 
drink the waters at Tunbridge 
Wells, 160 ; insulted by the 
Marchioness of Worcester, 160, 
161 ; brought back in state to 
Windsor, 161 ; reproaches the 
King with his infidelities, 161 ; 
brings her younger sister, Hen- 
riette de Keroualle, to England, 
161 ; marries her to the Earl 
of Pembroke, 161 ; saves the earl 
from the consequences of his 
drunken violence, 163 note ; in- 
sulted by him, 164 ; endeavours 
to obtain a tabouret from Louis 
XIV., 164 ; does not venture 
to address le Grand Monarque 
directly, 165 ; receives a present 
of a pair of ear-rings from him, 
165 ; in higher favour than ever, 
165 ; her son created Duke of 
Richmond, 165, 166 ; trick by 
which she obtains precedence for 
him over the Duke of Grafton, 
166, 167 ; a pension of ^10,000 
a year settled upon her, 167 ; 
makes the King spend enormous 
sums upon her, 168 ; her quarrels 
with Nell Gwyn, 173 et seq. ; 
alarmed at the arrival of Madame 
de Mazarin in England, 193 ; 
does not receive so much con- 
sideration as formerly, 193 ; 
all the Court on the side of her 
rival, 195 ; in bad health, 199 ; 
goes to take the waters at Bath, 
202, 203 ; injures an eye, 203 ; 
her fall from favour appears 
imminent, 204 ; gives way to 
despair in the presence of the 
French Ambassador, 205 ; con- 
tinues to decline in favour, 210 ; 



INDEX 



373 



Portsmouth, Louise de Kerou- 
alle, Duchess of — continued. 
ridiculed by Nell Gwyn, 211 ; 
formal reconciliation effected 
between her and Madame de 
Mazarin, 213, 214; appears to 
resign herself to the triumph of 
her rival, 214, 215 ; recovers 
her health and good looks, 223 ; 
has a serious illness, 231 ; 
" preaches to the King to detach 
him from women," 231 ; in- 
trigues against her, 232, 233 ; 
reported to enjoy greater con- 
sideration than ever, 233 ; enor- 
mous sums lavished upon her, 
2 33- 2 34 '• an d tne Popish plot, 
252 ; seriously contemplates re- 
turning to France, 252, 253 ; 
arranges a secret interview be- 
tween Charles II. and the 
French Ambassador, 260 ; re- 
covers her former ascendency 
over the King, 263 ; negotiates 
on his behalf for a new subsidy 
from France, 267 ; coquets with 
each party in turn, 272 et seq. ; 
hated by the people, 273 ; re- 
flected upon by name in both 
Houses of Parliament, 273 ; dis- 
misses her Roman Catholic 
servants, 273 ; " presented " 
before the Grand Jury of Middle- 
sex as " a common nuisance," 
275 ; allies herself with Shaftes- 
bury and Monmouth, 276 et seq. ; 
present at the trial of Stafford, 
280 ; attacked by Shaftesbury in 
the House of Lords, 280, 281 ; 
her alliance with the Whigs at 
an end, 285 ; Nell Gwyn mis- 
taken for her at Oxford, 287, 
288 ; anxious about her future, 
300 ; persuades the King to 
make provision for her, 301, 302 ; 
her visit to France, 303 et seq. ; 
reconciled to the Duke of York, 

307 ; her position henceforth 
practically unassailable, 307, 

308 ; performs all the functions 
of a queen, 312 ; in concert 
with the French Ambassador, 
manages all French interests, 
313 ; her magnificent apart- 
ments at Whitehall, 313, 314; 
excites the jealousy of the King 
by her intimacy with the Grand 



Portsmouth, Louise de Kkrou- 
alle, Duchess of — continued. 
Prieur de Vendome, 314 et seq. ; 
greatly alarmed lest the Grand 
Prior should make her letters 
to him public, 317 ; intervention 
of Louis XIV. on her behalf, 
318, 319 ; caressed by Charles II. 
" in the view of all people," 
319 ; the Aubigny estates 
erected into a duchy in her 
favour, 319, 320; her illness 
in 1684 ; the King " toying with 
her," 331 ; and the last illness 
of Charles II., 335, 336, 337, 
338 ; receives assurances of pro- 
tection and friendship from the 
new King, 349 ; and from 
Louis XIV., 349 ; her son de- 
prived of trie post of Master of 
the Horse, 350 ; receives a 
pension from James II., 350 ; 
but claims in vain the fulfilment 
of a supposed promise made her 
by the late King, 350 ; returns 
to France, 351 ; narrowly 
escapes being exiled by Louis 
XIV., 351, 352 ; loses her 
English pension, when James II. 
loses his throne, 352 ; her son, 
the Duke of Richmond, recon- 
ciled to the new regime, 352 ; in 
serious pecuniary difficulties, 
353 ; saved from her creditors 
by the intervention of Louis 
XIV., 353 : ner last years and 
death, 353, 354. 

Potvin, James, 325-6. 

Powell, Henry, 235. 

Powis, Earl of, 251. 

Pregnani, Abbe de, 98 et seq. 

Preuilly, Marquess de, 313. 

Prideaux, Bishop, 250, {cited) 299, 
300. 

Prince, Thomas, 298-9. 

Prior, Mathew, 53 note. 

Pym, John, 34. 



Reresbv, Sir John, 255, 278-9, 

297. 
Revaisson, Francois, 1 1 1 note. 
Rhodes, Richard, his play, Flora's 

Vagaries, 57 note, 58. 



374 



INDEX 



Richelieu, Marechal de, n, 224. 
Richelieu, Marquis and Marquise 

de, 358. 
Richmond, Charles Lennox, first 

Duke of (natural son of Charles 

II. and Duchess of Portsmouth), 

127, 139, 165, 166-7, 277, 319, 

320, 350, 352. 
Richmond, Charles Stuart, third 

Duke of, 23 et seq., 35, 149. 
Richmond, Frances, Duchess of, 

17 et seq., 22 et seq., 58, 6o, 133, 

149, 277. 
Rieux, Marie de, 103. 
Riley, John, 73. 
Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 

43 note, 45, 54, 73, 324, 328. 
Rochester, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of, 

202 note, 285, 301, 312, 327-8, 

344- 
Roettiers, John, 27. 
Rohan, Chevalier de, 173-4, 185. 
Romney, Henry Sidney, Earl of, 

268 et seq., 270 note, 272, 304 

note, 330, 344, 352. 
Rookwood, Sir Thomas, 124. 
Rosebery, Lord, 54 note. 
Rothschild, Mr. Leopold de, 298. 
Rupert, Prince, 34, 72, 106-7, 

341- 
Russell, Lord, 250, 257, 259. 265, 

274, 293, 309, 310. 
Ruvigny, Comte de, 155-6, (cited) 

160, 164-5, 191 et seq. 
Ruvigny, Henri de Massue de, 156. 
Rycaut, Philip, 162. 
Rye House Plot, 6, 79, 246 et seq., 

309. 321. 



St. Albans, Duchess of, 211- 12. 
St. Albans, Charles Beauclerk 

(natural son of Charles II. and 

Nell Gwyn), Duke of, 39, 66, 

211-12, 328-9, 342, 344, 347. 
St. Evremond, Seigneur de, 304, 

305 note, (cited) 177-8 note, 354 

et seq. 
St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, 272, 324, 

343 et seq. 
Saint-Maurice, Marquis de, (cited) 

1 16-17. 
Saint-Real, Abbe de, 190 and note, 

191, 197-8, 202. 



Saint-Simon, Louis, Due de, 111, 
(cited) 105, 122, 155, 182-3, 240, 
306, 351, 358. 

Salisbury, Earl of, 219, 220. 

Sancroft, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, William, 336. 

Sault, Comte de, 104-5, *6i. 

Saunderson, Mary. See Better- 
ton. 

Savile. See Halifax. 

Sawyer, Sir Thomas, 344. 

Scudery, Madame de, (cited) 231. 

Sedley, Catherine, 132 and note. 

Sedley, Sir Charles, 36, 52 and note, 
55-6, 92 note, 132 and note. 

Selwyn, George, 354. 

Sergeant, Mr. P. W., 117 note. 

Sessac, Marquis de, 154-5, 208 note. 

Sevigne, Madame de, 105-6, (cited) 
174-5, 181-2, 232. 

Seymour, Edward, 153 note. 

Shadwell, Thomas, 328 ; his play, 
Epsom Wells, 36, 55. 

Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley 
Cooper, first Earl of, 298 ; and 
the Traitc Simule, 107 ; com- 
mitted to the Tower, 219, 220 ; 
set at liberty, 234 note, 247 ; 
and terms of peace with France, 
234 et seq., 245 ; his statesman- 
like qualities, 247 ; his vacil- 
lating policy, 248-9 ; enters 
into an alliance with the Country 
party, 249, 271 ; his manage- 
ment of the " Popish Plot," 250 
et seq., 257, 286, 294-5 ; and the 
Exclusion Bill, 259, 260, 264 
et seq., 273 et seq., 283, 289 et 
seq. ; his attack on the Duchess 
of Portsmouth, 280-1, 285 ; with 
the King at Oxford, 287 et seq. ; 
flies to Holland, 308 ; his death, 
308. 

Shakespeare, 32 note ; his plays, 
Othello, 34, 36 ; Merry Wives 
of Windsor, 34, 36 ; Romeo and 
Juliet, 35-6 ; Henry VIII., 35-6 ; 
Twelfth Night, 35-6 ; Julius 
CcBsar, 36; Henry IV., 36; A 
Midsummer Night's Dream, 36 ; 
Hamlet, 36 ; King Lear, 36 ; 
Macbeth, 36 ; The Tempest, 36. 

Sheldon, Archbishop, 23-4. 

Shirley, James, 33 note. 

Shore, Jane, 20. 

Shrewsbury, Countess of, 114. 

Shrewsbury, Earl of, 157. 



INDEX 



375 



Sidney, Algernon, 5, 6, 235, 236 

note, 257, 275 note, 309, 310. 
Sidney, Henry. See Romney. 
Sidney, Col. Robert, 5-6. 
Smith, William, 35. 
Sobieski, Jean. See John, King 

of Poland. 
Soissons, Chevalier de, 355-6. 
Soissons, Olympe, Comtesse de, 

177 note, 355. 
South, Robert, 69. 
Southampton, Charles (natural son 

of Charles II. and Duchess of 

Cleveland), Duke of, 14, 140. 
Southern, Thomas, his play, Loyal 

Brother, 87. 
Spratt, Bishop of Rochester, 

Thomas, 53. 
Stafford, William Howard, first 

Earl of, 235, 251, 279, 280, 309. 
Stillingfleet, Edward, 80, (cited) 20. 
Stuart, Frances. See Duchess of 

Richmond. 
Stuart, Mrs., 18-19. 
Suckling, Sir John, his play, The 

Goblins, 39. 
Suffolk, James, Duke of, 7. 
Sunderland, Countess of, 124, 170, 

272, 304 note. 
Sunderland, Earl of, 191, 233, 236 

note, 243, 249, 253, 265, 273, 283, 

297. 315- 
Sunninghill, Berkshire, Nell Gwyn's 

residence at, 89. 
Sussex, Anne, Countess of (natural 

daughter of Charles II. and 

Duchess of Cleveland), 13, 205, 

209, 210, 241 et seq., 312. 
Sussex, Thomas Lennard, Earl of, 

141, 205, 209, 210, 241. 
Swift, Dean, 243, 249. 



Taafe, Lord. See Carlingford. 
Temple, Sir William, 69, 94, 238, 

259, 264-5, 279. 
Temple, Miss, 308. 
Tenison, Thomas, Archbishop of 

Canterbury, 343 et seq. 
Teonge, (cited) 74. 
Test Act, 130, 141, 153, 249. 
Theatre, Blackfriars, 30, 33-4, 39 

note. 
Theatre, Duke's, 31 et seq., 58, 60, 

65-6. 



Theatre, King's, 31 et seq., 56 et seq., 

139. 172. 
Tournelle, Marquise de la. See 

Chateauroux. 
Traill, Mr., (cited) 254, 289, 290. 
Traite Simide, 113, 126. 
Turberville, Edward, 347 note. 
Turenne, Marechal de, 146, 180 note. 
Tymeur, Madame de, 224. 



Underhill, Cave, 35. 
Uphill, Mrs., 34-5. 



Valliere, Duchesse de la, 105, 182 

note. 
Vanbeuninghen, 307. 
Varelst, 341. 

Vasconcellos, Dora Luis de, 304. 
Vendome, Louis Joseph, Due de, 

318. 
Vendome, Grand Prior of France, 

Philippe de, 315 el seq. 
Venio, 124. 
Villiers. See Jersey. 
Vincent, Sir Francis, 162. 
Viner, Sir Robert, 78-9. 
Vintimille, Comtesse de, 358. 
Voltaire, 139. 
Vossius, Dr., 355. 



W 



Wakeman, Dr., 274. 

Waldron, 66. 

Wall, Mrs., 270. 

Waller, Edmund, 53, 208 note, 212, 

355- 
Walpole, Horace, (cited) 54, 327 

note. 
Walter, Lucy, 5 et seq., 264-5, 2 7 2 - 
Walter, William, 5. 
Wardour, Lord Arundel of, 96, 106, 

251. 
Warner, Mr. John, 345-6. 
Weaver, Mrs., 34, 62. 
Wharton, Thomas, Marquess of, 

213-14. 
Wheatley, Mr. H. B., 41 note, 63 

note, (cited) 87, 271, 323. 
Wilkie, David, 323. 



376 



INDEX 



William III., 252, 348 ; and siege 
of Maestricht, 217 ; defeated at 
Cassel, 220 ; his marriage to 
Princess Mary, 226 et seq., 261 ; 
truce with Louis, 237 ; and the 
Exclusion Bill, 264-5, 2 68 et seq., 
288 ; Duchess of Portsmouth's 
support of, 269, 270, 275, 277 ; 
succeeds to the Throne, 351 ; and 
the Duchess of Portsmouth's 
pension, 352 ; and the Duchesse 
de Mazarin's pension, 356. 

Windsor, Burford House (Nell 
Gwyn's residence), 89, 325. 

Wintershall, 34. 



Wood, Anthony, (cited\ 286-7, 2 93 

note. 
Worcester, Marchioness of , 105, 160. 
Wright, Alderman, 287, 298. 
Wycherley, William, 36, 59 ; his 

plays, Plain Dealer, 34 ; Love 

in a Wood, or St. James's Park, 

137 et seq. 



York, Duke of. See James II. 
York, Duchess of. See Mary of 
Modena. 



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